It was over a year ago that we honed in on Yangshuo, China as a place to visit and spend a month of Project Equator. It was close to Guiping, the town where Yve was born, and it was described as “The Yosemite of China” …perfect! We quickly started researching places to stay and realized that renting a house or apartment was not a viable option. We looked into hotels but the idea of staying in a hotel for a month seemed yucky. That’s when we discovered Fun Sam’s…a top rated B&B. With Only 15 rooms, Fun Sam’s seemed like the perfect choice. We emailed Sam and inquired about availability for seven people. Sam was astounded that we wanted to stay a month! Most people stay in Yangshuo for 1-2 nights as a side trip from Guilin. But he happily booked our gang and we were set!!
For months prior to arrival, the anticipation of what Fun Sam’s would really be like was a topic of much discussion. It was to be one of the longest stay of our journey and we had very few details other than the reviews on TripAdvisor. Would they have good WiFi for homework? Would it be close to town? How would we get around not knowing any Chinese? Was Sam really that fun? Was his name really Sam?
Well, we lucked out! We could not have picked a better place to stay. Sam and his family made our stay in Yangshuo something we will never forget! Sam put us on the 5th floor where we had 3 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and a private common room. Tuck pointed out that this was more bathrooms than we have on Mercer Island 
We had several electric tea kettles and full access to Sam’s mom’s kitchen if we ever wanted to cook. There was not an elevator so we got some good conditioning for hiking the Great Wall
Sam runs the B&B with his parents and speaks impeccable English (as well as a few other languages!) He helped us book anything and everything, rent bikes and even helped us arrange a trip to Guiping! Sam’s mom is an amazing cook and made breakfast for us every morning and Sam’s dad was always there to make sure we arrived home safely every evening from our death defying bike rides
I could spend more time describing Fun Sam’s but I am sure you would rather see Tuck in another video
By the end of a month, we felt like part of the family! Our trip to Yangshuo would have not been the same had it not been for Sam and his Family! Sam taught us many things about China and one thing he taught us was that good friends don’t say thank you as much as we do. “If you know somebody well, you don’t say thank you…it is understood…you only say thank you to those folks you don’t know well.” Therefore, we won’t say thank you to Sam in this post, we will just say “you made our time in Yangshuo unforgettable and we will be back”
P.S. For the record, Fun Sam’s had the best WiFi in China and Sam’s name is not really Sam
View from our room!
View from the roof deck!
We even convinced Sam to go with us to Mood Food
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