Yangshuo

We have been in Yangshuo since the 22nd. It was a total shock to arrive to the intense heat and humidity here after our travels around the cool of the Yunnan province, especially the mountains of Zhongdian. Sunday- Tues were particularly intense and we were taking up to 4 cold showers a day to calm our systems. Mike and I tend to be pretty active people and used to being out all day in our travels, so it's been surprising to do about one big activity a day and then be completely exhausted... in fact, on Monday, I got a migrane due to the heat, but was rescued by a copious amount of ibuprofin. Unfortunately, I could not see much of the views from our boat cruise due to the visual blindness from the migrane.
Tuesday was a highlight- we rented bicycles and cycled around the countryside... the movement on the bikes providing a most welcome breeze... the scenery here really is lovely- limestone formations, huge bamboo, rivers galore, and the down town of Yangshuo is very charming- lots of bridges and is fairly small.
The last two days we have had HUGE rainstorms in the afternoon and that seems to have done wonders for cooling the air a tad. In fact, yesterday, while visiting the Longji rice terraces outside of Guilin, we were caught in a downpour. I could not have been more wet if I had thrown myself in the river with all of my clothes and shoes on (very nice for the 3 hour ride back to Yangshuo- at least it was warm water!) It was incredible- like a river unleashed from the sky- pummeling our heads and creating rivers of the streets... complete with crashing thunder and flashes of ligtening.... we were grateful to not be caught in any landslides. The river was raging during the storm... it was really cool to watch from the saftey of the shore. The Yao women of the village kept trying to sell me ponchos and cheered me on as I raced from the terraces, down the cobbled path, to our mini van! To then be greeted by our driver for the day with much exclimations in Chinese :)