This is what RURAL China is like in THE MOST beautiful landscapes - Yangshuo

I had no idea rural China is like this. Today, we are taking our journey through China's must-visit spots for first-timers to a whole new level with an off-the-beaten-pump twist. Welcome to Yangshu. Often referred to as one of China's most beautiful destinations, Yangshu lives up to every bit of its reputation. Nestled amongst surreal limestone peaks and winding rivers, this place offers an almost otherworldly escape. And what better way to explore it than on an e-bike? Oh my god, this is so fun! This is the best day ever! We will visit all the iconic spots, but we will of course also visit the more local and hidden away side of Yangshu. My cheeks hurt, my cheeks hurt. This is the moment of my purest happiness. Good morning from Yangshu! Today is all about exploring the beautiful landscape around us. We rented an e-bike and we are already off to the nature. We left the city center, which was just a little short park, and we are already out! So one of the top things to do here in Yangshu is to rent one of these bamboo rafts. And as we were just driving on the scooter, I came across the spot. Really, it's not too far away from the city where you can see all the bamboo rafts arriving from there. So this seems to be the end point of their route. And guess what? Just like in China's style, they have a whole algorithm and mechanism to bring these boats back up to the starting point. Let me show you. Do you see that machine over there? Basically, all the boats arrive to that corner and then they are lifted with the machine up, up, up and loaded onto trucks. And then they probably drive them away back to the starting point. How amazing! And this right here is also my first view of the Li River and its distance and the mountains over there. It looks so beautiful. I cannot wait to go deeper into the mountain to see all of that closer with my own eyes. Let's jump onto the scooter and keep on driving further into the nature. And if you haven't noticed yet by the level of my sun protection today, it is hot over here. And many of the bikes, they come with those square umbrellas on top of them. Never seen that before, but it's genius because it keeps both people cool as well as the seat. Ours didn't come with it. Just like a small little e-bike. It's okay. There are many attractions along the way really close proximity from the city center, which is quite convenient for tourists like us. So one of them is the Moon Hill, which is this mountain formation with a hole in the middle. And you can come up here and get tickets, but it is now the peak of the sun. It is very, very hot. And the climb up, according to these ladies, is more than one hour. So probably if you come in the late afternoon or evening, it will be a better idea. And I think that's what people do because there's no one around otherwise. So we are letting the drone up to see the Moon Hill this way. Xie xie. Nice to meet you. Bye bye. The Moon Hill looks amazing from the drone, but we are moving on. This is also my first time on an electric motorbike. It is amazing. Like it flies almost. It feels so smooth. And I love that there's no pollution from gasoline motorcycles around the city. They still exist, but really not in the masses. Most of the people have an e-bike. Just a few minutes away by motorcycle is a big, big tree that you can visit. Entry for that is 50 yuan per person. And it's supposed to be only a five minute walk. And the tree itself is 1,000 years old or over 1,000 years old. So let's go see it. It's obviously quite a touristic spot. There's someone on the horse for some reason. I'm here for the tree though. I found the tree. Ta-da. Here it is. It looks spectacular. It actually from the branches that it has, it has grown new roots. Right. We've seen the tree. Now let's move on. I mean, there are other things to do here, but it's not for me. Now, retrospectively, I wouldn't recommend to come here in particular. Just think you have seen the tree now through my video. We are in such a beautiful scenic place after all. Let's focus on this. And while I finish my date flavored Chinese ice cream, you can support my channel. That is if you want to. All you have to do is subscribe to my channel, give this video a like and leave a comment. Your support means the world to me, literally. We now made it a bit off the main road and look at that. We are in the middle of the beautiful nature. There are some fields where something is growing on and the mountains in the distance. Everything here is green. It's like so many different shades of green. It's really, really beautiful. And the road is tiny. Just enough space for us to drive through that. Now, alongside the road, we saw this coffee house. Well, more so I saw the nature and lots of people taking pictures. It looks a little bit like a spot for picture taking for sure, but it's coffee time. Maybe we can get a snack and sit in that scenery. Let's check what they have. I wasn't wrong with coming here for coffee because I'm going to be sitting and looking on that view right now. And I have perfectly positioned not one ventilator, but three ventilators on us. Cheers! Wow, what a beautiful view we are looking at. Really incredible. We are like in the middle of it all, in the middle of the nature, and there's like a path where everyone is walking down. But the scenery is exactly what I wanted to see. Just mountains over mountains. Taking in that ventilator for one last time and then let's move on. Gosh, it has been so relaxing to sit here. I really can't believe I'm here. I've seen so many pictures of this place, but now being here myself, like a freaking fairy tale. Right, all dressed up, all creamed up with sunscreen again. Let's go! Look what we have found. There is no one around. I feel like we have this whole nature to ourselves. It just lets me imagine how it used to be like back in the day before tourism exploded in this area. It's so nice. Look, even the water here has a green touch. So everything around me, like 360, is just pure beauty on every single eye level. From water to grass to fields to mountains, everything. And we are so lucky with the weather in terms that it's not raining. So I've actually never driven a scooter before. And given this is an e-scooter, and here in China, you don't even need a license to drive one of those. I thought, how difficult can it be? And we are in an off-the-beaten-path road. So I will try. So what should I do? Now you go walk a bit there. I'm scared. Okay, I will spare you my first attempt here and the basic instructions. Let's swap to the scene when I'm almost Shumacher. Oh my god, this is so fun! This is the best day ever! This is so fun! I can drive a motorcycle! Okay, maybe just a little bit more practice needed here. Oh my god, this is so fun! Wow, this is so amazing! Oh my god, this is so easy as well! You know what I love? Is that these guys on the right here completely didn't care about me having my first driving experience and all the emotions that come with it. It's kind of the perfect example on how we tend to overthink what others think about us while in reality everyone has their own things to think about and you will likely not be their main point of thoughts. I know I'm getting kind of philosophical here but this type of knowledge is basically literally just on the street wherever you travel. You just have to pick it up with your open mind. This practice has been enough for my first time. I'm giving over to the main driver here. Guess what? We continued on driving straight and now there is no one around. No coffee shops, no restaurants, just private houses, farmers and everything here. We have to tell ourselves this is the dream. This is exactly what I wanted when I came to Yangshuo is to drive through that scenic landscape right here. This is the dream. Who needs more? I don't need any attractions, any of that. This right here is like the peak of the experience in Yangshuo. You feel such an incredible freedom when you drive on your motorcycle, e-bike, whatever it is that you have. You just feel the wind through your hair and everything around you is like a postcard. It's indescribable the feeling that I'm feeling right now but here it is possible to get it. And after a short drive and being parked up, we arrived to what seems to be a little town. It looks super cozy right here and supermarket. So we got some little supplies. There is another bamboo raft station over here. So I feel like you have them everywhere. If you miss them somewhere or it's too packed, you can just find them somewhere else. How nice is that? Do you see their chairs? They're like tilted so they're almost laying down on them. Really relaxing. This little town has a few street food stands and a supermarket but equally some restaurants with seating options directly here on the water. So we got a prime table here. We ordered some dumplings. So nothing that should take too much time because we want to be eating and heading on from here. We hope it's going to arrive in a moment. Wow, even the wooden thing here is so hot to touch. Wow, this is really nice. It has like a really herby taste, like super duper fresh. The filling is amazing. You bite into this and you get like a burst of freshness. And while I'm still eating my little dumplings here, it looks like it's going to rain soon. The clouds started forming up. The wind came up. It's quite refreshing to take off the sunglasses and the hat though. So we will probably be under a rain soon. So we are going to be packing up our backpacks and all the waterproof stuff. This camera is going to go into my backpack and I will continue on with the iPhone that is waterproof. So off we go. If the sound is a little bit bad at the moment, it's because I took off my mic because it's equally not waterproof. Please DJI, invent a microphone that is waterproof. Slowly but surely, we started getting deeper and deeper into this region, which I love. I am clearly walking on somebody's property right now, on their garden, because I saw they have ducks from their house and this is something else. I've never seen that. Wait, wait, wait. I'll get there. I need to walk really slowly because you see this path, it's like very thin. I don't want to fall inside and I have a garden with ducks and a pond here with ducks. I will be heading back now before the owners come out and ask me what I'm doing. This is the dream that I was after here in Yangshuo because I wanted to see rural China and rural China is a dream. It's honestly such a bucket list moment for me to be here in really, really deep villages in China. I can't believe it. I'm just loving every single moment here and everyone is so friendly. Whatever they tell you about China, whatever they tell you about rural China, don't believe anyone if it's negative. Everything I have experienced is just so nice and positive. Every person I'm meeting, I'm saying Ni Hao and they smile back. They say hello. Everyone is just so nice and friendly, inviting, offering us tea, snacks and just being the nicest people. Right here in rural China, you really see the basics of China and how it was established and how people continue to live on. Compared to the mega cities that I have already visited, this was the point that I needed to have like the whole spectrum of China and I'm loving it all. At this point, I wasn't even aware that my experience today was about to get so much better. But first we have arrived to another major sightseeing point, which was on our way. It is truly a gorgeous bridge that seamlessly blends into the nature from every single angle. So of course it is popular with people. Now from here, the view is even nicer to see all the boats and the river around us. There are some photo shooting spots around here and one couple right there is doing their beautiful shots right now. I think it's such a nice memory because they look so beautiful with that background and the professional photographer in the edit after that. That will look really, really nice. But I'm going to be heading down now because I saw some birds of the fishermen that I really, really want to see here in this area. So let me just head down there. Oh my God, if I see the fishermen now. The birds are real. But there's no fishermen. I think it's like a photo setup with real birds. Now let me tell you why I'm so excited about these birds and seeing them in real life. It is because I saw so many documentaries about this style of fishing, which is quite a special one. So how this works is that there is a fisherman with them on the boat and these birds have like a strip around their neck making it super duper tight. The fisherman then lets the birds dive into the water. They catch some fish and they bring it back up to him because their neck is too tight. They can't swallow it themselves and they are loyal to their fishermen. So he gets the big fish and in return, he feeds them with little fish that they can swallow. And this type of bird, as far as I know, is worth one or two months of salary for the fishermen. So they do really take care of the birds and make sure that they have everything that they need while serving for the fishing needs. And honestly, I thought they are way, way smaller than that, but they look like massive black swans almost, like half a swan. And in this scenic, look here, I couldn't have a better spot to see them for the first time. After that magical bridge, we decided to go more off the beaten path and really just drive into the depth of this area. There is no one around, only local people. So now, I feel like we are going to come very, very close to experiencing more of rural China. This is amazing. This is how we get lost in China. I hope not. I don't think so. We are still not too far from the city center. All very manageable. The only concern is we have an e-bike. So obviously, if we are not in reach of a socket where we can charge it, I'm going to be living here. Not a bad place to live. Ni hao. How are you? Ni hao. Oh, it's so cute. Ni hao. I think everyone is shocked to see us. Ni hao. I don't think tourists come that far inside here into the village. I'm really not sure what to expect. What we're going to find here. Is it more villages? Is it a secret Yangshuo part? I saw a chicken. Wow, I think I saw pomelos growing. Hey, you see the pomelos? Bless you. It's a kitten. Ni hao. Wow, he has a lot of kittens. Ni hao. Nice cat. Ni hao. Yes. What's the name of that? Beautiful. Decided to step off the bike and walk a little. Look what I found. Like an ancient water pumping. Is that still working? Should I try? Yeah, no. It's an ancient one. How cool is that? Ni hao. There's a lovely lady. She just said hello. I'm just gonna walk after. Wow. Is that pomelo? Wow. It's a fruit. Oh, so nice. Ni hao. So beautiful. Your house. One moment. I will use a translation app. You live in such a beautiful place. Very, very. Wow. The lady then invited me to see her animals. At least that's what I interpreted from her body language. And honestly, I couldn't be happier and wished I could speak a little more with her. Hello, little doggy. There's a dog. I'm literally alone in this area. Ni hao. Wow. Ni hao. Oh, wow. A big, big house. And it's definitely rural China. It looks amazing inside. So cozy. Obviously, a little bit more traditional. But her dog is so beautiful. I think she goes on with her day. So I'm gonna say bye to all the chickens. Let me just translate what it was. It was nice to meet you. I don't think she can hear me. I just wanted to say... Bye-bye. There's a lot of stuff growing here. I see that one, which I think will be a banana tree, if I'm not wrong. I've seen some apples as well. And the pomelos. And obviously, some smaller stuff is growing. Cabbages. Zucchinis, I saw. Imagine you live in this area. Imagine, like, this is your view each and every day. Just trying to speak to locals around here. Ni hao. Very beautiful. Everything around. It's you and me. Bye-bye. I would love to get to know them more, but it's difficult without knowing any Chinese. Let's move on. Maybe we can speak to more people around. Ni hao. Wow. Hello. So cute. She has like a strawberry dress. No, it's a tomato dress. Oh, is it a baby shiba? Ni hao. All of these chickens are hers. Oh, she has fresh eggs. She's a duck as well. It's a duck, no? Thank you so much. It was lovely to meet you. Bye-bye. Oh, chicken. Another chicken. Ni hao. People are so smiley. I had no idea rural China is like this. It's simply incredible. Everyone is so friendly, so smiley, inviting. Wow. Why is the whole world not here? Oh my god. I'm so happy. This turns out to be the best part of my day. I'm not kidding you. I guess we'll do a circle. Hello. Where are we going? Yangshuo. Yes, there. So cute. Bye. Bye-bye. Oh, they're watching TV, having dinner. Wow, this was amazing. So happy we entered that village. I don't think tourists come here because they were like, what are you doing here? Did you get lost? They were like, go back. That's where you need to go. No, we came to see you. We want to meet you. My cheeks hurt. This is the moment of my purest happiness. When I meet people in local villages and I see how they live, this is the big highlight of travel for me. Ni hao. I keep saying it wrong. Ni hao. But why did they teach ni hao? Do you say the O or not? Ni hao or ni hao? Or ni hao? Ni hao. No? Ni hao. I'll never know. Who's gonna tell me? Please tell me. I think my heart is exploding. My heart is exploding. I see like local schools, local houses, and everyone has their door open. Everyone has their door open. Like, is that a thing? Yeah. You know, maybe it's like a sign of inviting people or... Ni hao. Hello. Ni hao. Hi, baby. Bye-bye. Today we went from starting with super touristic sites like the big, big tree, and then the coffee house where people come just for the photo shooting. But Yangshuo has just so much more to offer than just those touristic sites. And for me, it's always about finding the local sites of any place that I'm visiting because this is really the heart of the place. And these are the people that have been here generations before all of this exploded and before we tourists came here. So it's important to meet these people and really stop being scared from visiting smaller cities, smaller towns, interacting with people. Nothing is as scary as the media shows you places to be. As long as you feel safe and everyone is nice and friendly, what's the worst thing that can happen other than meeting amazing people around you? Now I understand why they say that sunset is the perfect time in Yangshuo to take pictures because this is simply incredible. Maybe in the top 10 sunsets I have seen, and we have the mountain a little bit covering that up, but I can see how bright orange it is. I think the camera is not properly reflecting that. If I put the focus on there a little bit more, it is really, really, really stunning. Wow, what a sunset. The sun has set now, so it's time to jump onto that scooter and get back to the city of Yangshuo because we don't want to get stuck here in darkness. There is nothing around at all in terms of lightning. So let me jump onto that scooter and we will get going. Just like that, we were already back on the main road, driving towards the city center of Yangshuo. I was kind of sad to leave the local villages in this region that I just got to see. It felt like its own little hidden away universe, away from all the noise of the outside world in this beautiful setting. As we got closer to the city center, the lights got stronger and stronger and I already knew what was expecting me because upon arrival to the city yesterday evening, I already visited the center. So I knew it's really fun and I'm having a fun evening ahead of me. That thought kind of helped against the sadness from leaving the villages now. The West Street, the main city center area, is definitely optimized to provide those fun evening activities when it gets dark outside. From colorful streets to many photo shooting studios and lots of entertainment options, there are also restaurants and even street food options. I didn't quite know about that before coming here so this was quite a pleasant surprise. What? I think there is a... There is someone inside! Oh, okay. I got scared. Okay, but for today... Now that we've made it back into West Street, I'm gonna be heading to the dinner but tomorrow morning I'm gonna be exploring Yangshuo's nature again and I'm gonna be going on a very, very special adventure. So I will say good night for now and I'll see you very, very soon.