Our first weekend excursion was to the small tourist town of Yangshuo. As my loyal readers will already know I have been there twice before and enjoyed it very much.
This time, we had a four hour river float down to the town and two full days to enjoy ourselves.
Coming right off the heels of Roger's birthday bash, a few of us were feeling a little worse for wear when we were rallied to CLI's ground floor at 8am.
Despite the setbacks we all made it on to the boat in one piece and proceeded downriver. On my previous journeys to Yangshuo I had taken a bus and a bamboo raft down the river, this go around, however, our group was too big so we were forced to take a river cruise liner (they insisted it wasn't a fat joke, but I know).
The cruise liner was nice, but it moved fast and lost a lot of the feel the bamboo raft had. At any rate, the river scenery was breathtaking, and it was great seeing the rest of the group experience it for the first time.
When we reached Yangshuo most of the group had fully recovered from the previous evening but everyone was tired and needed a break. Some went out shopping but most took a snooze in the hotel. Eventually we all met up for dinner at a Chinese/western hybrid restaurant.
From my previous experience I knew that ordering pseudo-western cuisine in China only led to a long road of disappointment and digestive problems. I steered clear and ordered a beef and peanuts dish and some dumplings. My classmates, in their naïveté, nearly to a man ordered a western dish. Here's what they got:
A pizza so small that it might have satisfied a 3-year old child if it weren't for the cardboard crust and lack of sauce. A plate of banana pancakes that more closely resembled an incredibly thinly cut banana crepe. A turkey burger which, while correctly placed in between two buns, had the consistency of mashed potatoes and not a lick of moisture etc etc.
After our dinner we headed to an old jaunt of mine, Monkey Jane's hostel/rooftop bar. We decided to take it easy due to residual feelings of remorse regarding the previous night and because we knew we would be biking and hiking the entire following day. Despite all this, we had the good fortune of arriving 15 minutes before the end of happy hour.
We decided to order 10 big bottles of beer between the eight of us. It's only 3.5% alcohol after all. Well, four out of our group decided to head in early leaving the last four of us with the remaining 3 bottles. Being in a communist country we decided to split the drinks equally.
Progress was slow. The night was wearing on and we had one large bottle of Tsingdao sitting on the table mocking us. Two of our students, one I will call Rainman, and the other I will call Scooter, decided to split it. Scooter would drink first.
Scooter is the quiet type. You're lucky if you get ten words out of the guy in a day, and they are almost in response to a direct question.
Scooter picks up this big bottle of beer and starts drinking, slow at first, but increasing in intensity and speed as he went. He just didn't stop. We started beating the table like wild animals and chanting his real name off of the rooftop. After a solid 25 seconds of chugging Scooter set the beer down with only an inch or so left. We cheered, high-fived him, and prepared to exit the bar for some much needed rest.
All that was left was to watch Rainman polish off the remainder and walk back to our hotel. Rainman confidently grabbed the bottle and threw it up to his lips. After Scooter's inspiring performance Rainman proceeds to choke on one inch of beer and couldn't even finish it. After a good laugh a third student finished the bottle and we left to prepare for our day of biking and hiking.
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