Cycling and Kung Fu in Yangshuo with Kids

Our time in China continued with a visit to the town of Yangshuo. This is a beautiful part of China…limestone mountains, bamboo rafts drifting down the rivers, and small villages in the valleys. This is the China that is often depicted on artwork and paintings.

We were staying at the Yangshuo Mountain Retreat, a fantastic hotel right on the banks of the Yulong River, about twenty minutes out of the centre of Yangshuo. As soon as we arrived we knew this place was going to be one of our favourites. A small hotel in the middle of outstanding scenery with delightful food, both western and Chinese. We ate most of our meals at the hotel – they cater for everybody’s tastes with sandwiches, burgers (big hit with the boys), spaghetti bolognese and Chinese food. It would be hard to leave to do anything..!

On our first full day we hired bicycles from the hotel and cycled to Moon Hill and Luna, an Italian restaurant at the Mountain Retreat’s sister hotel, The Yangshuo Village Inn. It was boiling hot, above 35C. We cycled along pathways, through small villages in the valley, surrounded by limestone mountains, over river bridges stopping to watch the bamboo rafts float past. We were a source of great entertainment to the rafters with many taking our photograph as we stood on the bridges with our bicycles. We lost our way on the small pathways and ended up on a busy road with large buses honking at every opportunity. Honking is the norm in China and roadways are very noisy and scary places. It was a little daunting for us on our bicycles but we all rose to the challenge and arrived safely (if very sweaty) for our lunch at Luna. Lunch was delicious and we all devoured bowls of pasta and cold drinks. From the restaurant which is on the top floor of the hotel we could see Moon Hill, a natural round hole in a peak resembling the moon. After our hot and sweaty bike ride to get here we had already decided not to climb the hill! The cycle home seemed much quicker and a lot safer as we found the pathway we had missed on the way and didn’t need to cycle on the road.

Our second day started with a Kung Fu class. We were dropped off at the Yangshuo Traditional Tai Chi School. Our lesson comprised of an hour of Kung Fu and an hour of Tai Chi. This was all performed on an outdoor platform with a metal roof overhead. The facility was open to the outside air and we could look out over old brick buildings with tiled roofs to the nearby village.

The Kung Fu Master was a young Chinese man wearing bright red trousers.  We were the only students which was perfect for our introductory session. After a warm up we began learning Kung Fu, a series of movements all linked together. The Master then taught us a series of Tai Chi movements, much slower than the Kung Fu. At the end of the two hours we had the basics of the Kung Fu and Tai Chi movements down. Logan was the best at remembering the sequence of the movements and could do the Kung Fu series of movements by himself at the end of the lesson.  We all enjoyed learning Tai Chi and Kung Fu in this amazing setting in Yangshuo, China.

And just like that our time in Yangshuo was over. We loved the time we spent here, we could have done so much more, but for us it was a chance to recharge before our next destination in China, Xi’an.