studiobondurri Chapter 381 Guangxi Province
Chapter 381 Guangxi Province
After leaving Foshan, Lu Ran originally planned to continue west along G219, enter Guangxi Province, drive all the way to Yunnan Province, and then detour from Yunnan Province to Sichuan Province.
He spent several days drawing this route on the map and thought it was perfect, connecting the main attractions of the three southwestern provinces.
But Shen Yuege overturned his plan with just one sentence.
"High altitude? Your leg has just healed, aren't you afraid of a relapse if you go to high altitude?"
Lu Ran wanted to ask what the leg injury had to do with the high altitude, but he swallowed the words back.
Because he had never been to a high-altitude area before, he didn't know if his body could adapt.
He had never been there in his previous life, nor in this world.
If something really goes wrong when we get there, we'll be in the middle of nowhere, with no village or shop in sight, and we won't even be able to find a hospital.
Altitude sickness can have a significant impact on people who have never been to high altitudes, and it can even be life-threatening.
Lu Ran thought about it and felt that Shen Yuege's analysis made a lot of sense, so the two decided to change their route.
Since I wouldn't be able to get home in time for the Chinese New Year according to the original plan, I changed to a shorter route.
"Then let's change the route." Lu Ran shrunk the map on his phone and drew a line on the screen with his finger. "Go straight north, into Guangxi Province, then into Guizhou Province, and then into Sichuan Province. We won't be going through any plateaus, just some mountains at most, it won't kill us."
Shen Yuege leaned over to take a look at the map and nodded: "This route is good. Liuzhou, Guilin, southeastern Guizhou, Guiyang, Zunyi, Liupanshui, Bijie, and then into Sichuan Province. The whole way is full of cities and scenic spots, with complete supporting facilities, and there will be someone to take care of things if something happens."
"Are you on vacation or fleeing a disaster? At least if something happens, someone will take care of you."
"Safety comes first when you're out and about. Your leg has just healed, and I don't want to have to search for a doctor for you in some remote mountain village."
Lu Ran stopped arguing, started the RV, and drove northwest from Foshan.
It takes less than three hours to travel from Foshan to Guangxi Province by expressway.
Lu Ran didn't take the highway, but continued driving slowly along the national highway.
He went on a road trip not to rush, but to see the scenery.
There are only guardrails and median strips on the highway, what's so interesting about that?
After entering Guangxi Province, the scenery on both sides of the road began to change.
The mountains in Guangdong Province are rugged, rocky mountains, while the mountains in Guangxi Province are rounded, mound-like limestone hills, scattered across the fields, unconnected to each other, looking like a bunch of bonsai trees placed on the ground.
Shen Yuege peered out the car window for a while, then said, "Why do these mountains look like steamed buns?"
"That's karst topography," Lu Ran said. "The limestone has been eroded by water for millions of years, and that's how it turned out."
"You even know that?"
"I looked it up. I looked at it when I had nothing else to do."
"How much do you actually read when you have nothing to do?"
"Much more than you imagine."
Shen Yuege shook her head and didn't ask any more questions.
Upon arriving in Liuzhou, the two first looked for a place to park.
Lu Ran searched online for a caravan campsite in a park by the Liujiang River. The environment was nice, and the parking fee was fifty yuan per day.
The price is acceptable, and at least I don't have to worry about the car.
After parking the car, the two took a taxi to the city center.
Liuzhou is a small city, but it is quite clean. Many banyan trees are planted on both sides of the streets, with aerial roots hanging down like curtains.
The Liujiang River flows through the city, its waters a vibrant turquoise, a hundred times more beautiful than the Huangpu River in Shanghai.
"Let's go eat snail rice noodles first." Shen Yuege pulled Lu Ran and they went into an alley.
How do you know which restaurants are good?
"I checked. The one with the highest rating on Dianping is right ahead of me."
Lu Ran followed her into a narrow alley. Deep inside the alley was a small shop with a small storefront, but the line of people stretched from the door to the street, numbering at least twenty or thirty.
"So many people?" Lu Ran glanced at the queue.
"A lot of people means it's delicious. Let's get in line."
The two of them waited in line for more than twenty minutes before it was their turn. The shop wasn't big, with seven or eight tables, all of which were full. A handwritten menu was posted on the wall, offering snail rice noodles, dry-mixed snail rice noodles, with duck feet, with tofu puffs, and with braised eggs—the prices were ridiculously cheap.
Shen Yuege ordered a bowl of original-flavor snail rice noodles and added a duck foot.
Lu Ran ordered a bowl of dry noodles and added a braised egg.
When the noodles were served, the aroma hit you right away.
The smell of pickled bamboo shoots is so strong that it's as if someone has opened a jar of pickled cabbage that has been fermenting for half a year in front of you.
Shen Yuege took a deep breath and said something that left Lu Ran speechless: "That's the taste."
"Your description sounds like that of a masochist."
"You don't understand. The charm of snail rice noodles lies in its smell. It smells pungent, but tastes delicious."
Lu Ran didn't believe it, so he picked up a piece of food with his chopsticks and put it in his mouth.
The noodles were very smooth, and the soup base was sour and spicy; it was indeed delicious.
The sour bamboo shoot flavor wasn't as pungent as it smelled; instead, it added a complex texture to the soup base.
He took another bite, this time a little faster, and coughed because he was choked by the chili oil.
Shen Yuege handed over a bottle of soy milk, gloating, "If you can't eat spicy food, don't force yourself."
"I wasn't being stubborn. The chili oil just went into my trachea on its own."
"Chili oil can run away by itself? Do you think it has legs?"
Lu Ran was too lazy to argue with her, so he drank half a bottle of soy milk and continued eating.
It has to be said that the local snail rice noodles are indeed more authentic and taste much better than what they eat in Shanghai.
After finishing their snail rice noodles, the two strolled around the streets of Liuzhou for a while.
Shen Yuege saw a small shop selling snail rice noodle products and went in to buy a vacuum-packed bag of pickled bamboo shoots, saying she would take it back to give to her colleagues in the studio.
"You're sending them pickled bamboo shoots? They'll think you're playing a prank."
"You don't understand. People who love snail rice noodles can't resist the smell. Several people in my studio are snail rice noodle addicts. Giving this is better than any other gift."
Lu Ran was amused by her theory of "poisoning" and stopped trying to stop her.
The next morning, the two set off from Liuzhou and drove towards Guilin.
Liuzhou is not far from Guilin; it only takes a little over an hour to get there via the expressway.
Lu Ran still didn't take the highway, but drove slowly along the national highway.
The karst landforms on both sides of the road became more and more obvious, with more and more mountains, standing one after another in the fields, like a group of giants squatting on the ground in a daze.
Shen Yuege rolled down the car window and filmed the whole way with her phone.
"Are you going to edit all this footage into a documentary?" Lu Ran asked.
"I'm posting something. My fans haven't seen me in ages, if I don't post something soon they're going to call the police."
"Don't your fans know you're out having fun?"
"I don't know. I just said I had some family matters to attend to and needed to rest for a while."
"You're just trying to gain followers."
"I call this protecting privacy. If I said my husband and I were on our honeymoon, those gossip accounts could make up a hundred-episode drama."
Upon arriving in Guilin, the two first went to Elephant Trunk Hill.
That mountain really does look like an elephant sticking its trunk into the river to drink water; the wonders of nature are truly undeniable.
Shen Yuege took more than a dozen photos on the viewing platform. Because the angles she chose were similar to those in the textbook, the photos turned out very well.
However, Shen Yuege took many photos, and they all looked pretty much the same.
"What's different?" Lu Ran leaned over to look at her phone's photo album.
"Look at this picture, the reflection of Elephant Trunk Hill's trunk in the water is clearer. The sky is bluer in this picture. The clouds are even more beautiful in this picture."
Lu Ran looked at it for a long time and felt that the difference was not significant, but he didn't say anything.
When going out to have fun, his wife's happiness is the most important thing; he can't nitpick over such trivial matters.
Girls might like to take many photos from the same angle and then choose the best ones later.
After leaving Elephant Trunk Hill, the two went to the Li River.
The Li River is the essence of Guilin's landscape. Along the dozens of kilometers of waterway from Guilin to Yangshuo, both banks are lined with rounded limestone hills, standing one after another on the riverbank, their reflections in the water making it impossible to distinguish which are real and which are not.
Shen Yuege stood by the river and watched for a while before suddenly saying, "This water is so clear."
The water in the Li River is indeed clear.
The water was so clear that you could see the pebbles at the bottom of the river and the small fish swimming around.
The water was emerald green, not the murky green, but a transparent, jade-like green.
The sunlight shone on the water, making it sparkle like scattered gold.
Lu Ran squatted down and scooped up a handful of water.
The water was cool and slippery, like mountain spring water. He pulled his hand back, shook off the water, and stood up.
"Would you like to take a bamboo raft ride?" he asked.
"A bamboo raft? Is it safe?"
"It's safe. There are life jackets and boatmen holding it up; it won't capsize."
Shen Yuege thought for a moment and nodded.
The two found a bamboo raft at the dock. The boatman was a man in his fifties with tanned skin and a bright white smile.
He spoke Mandarin with a heavy Guangxi accent, and Lu Ran could understand about 70-80% of it by guessing.
The bamboo rafts set off from the dock and drifted downstream along the Li River.
The mountains on both sides recede into the distance, some resembling camels, some old men, and some upside-down calligraphy brushes.
The boatman introduced each mountain they passed to them, saying things like "Nine Horses Painting Mountain," "Yellow Cloth Reflection," and "Xingping Scenic Spot." Lu Ran listened for a long time and thought that these names were quite arbitrary, but the mountains were indeed beautiful.
After actually passing by those scenic spots, Lu Ran and his companion couldn't help but marvel at the wonders of nature.
Shen Yuege sat on a bamboo chair on the raft, dipped her feet into the water, and hissed as it got cold, but she didn't pull them back.
"Is it cold?" Lu Ran asked.
"It's a little cool, but it feels nice."
"Be careful of cramps."
"I'm not swimming, why would I get cramps?"
The bamboo raft drifted for more than an hour before arriving at the dock in Yangshuo.
The two of them got off the bamboo raft and strolled around Yangshuo town.
Yangshuo is a county in Guilin. It's not a big place, but the streets are full of foreigners.
Those blond-haired, blue-eyed foreigners rode bicycles through the country lanes, looking more at ease than the locals.
Shen Yuege saw a shop selling beer-braised fish and pulled Lu Ran inside.
Beer fish is a specialty of Yangshuo, made by stewing fish from the Lijiang River with beer. The fish is tender and the broth is rich.
Shen Yuege took a bite, her eyes lit up, she took another bite, and said, "This tastes much better than those Guangxi restaurants in Shanghai."
"Of course. Shanghai uses frozen fish, while they use freshly caught fish from the Li River. How can they be the same?"
"How do you know everything?"
"Because I can see the fish tank by the kitchen door."
Shen Yuege looked back and saw a large, transparent fish tank with several lively fish swimming inside.
She turned her head and glared at Lu Ran, who smiled and continued eating the fish.
The two stayed in Yangshuo for one night and returned to Guilin city early the next morning.
Lu Ran originally wanted to stay in Guilin for another day to visit the Longji Rice Terraces, but Shen Yuege said that the terraces were not beautiful this season because the rice had all been harvested and they were bare and not very interesting.
"Where do you want to go?"
"Sichuan Province. I want to see the giant pandas."
Lu Ran thought for a moment, and realized that from Guilin to Sichuan Province, there was Guizhou Province in between.
He had never been to Guizhou Province, but he knew that there were many mountains and the roads were difficult to travel.
But since Shen Yuege wants to see giant pandas, then let's go.
Anyway, their newly planned route is to go through Sichuan Province.
"Okay. Let's head to Sichuan Province then. We'll start from Guilin, go to southeastern Guizhou first, then to Guiyang, and then head north from Guiyang into Sichuan Province."
"You can drive any route you want, I don't care. I just want to see giant pandas."
Lu Ran smiled, took out his phone, and started planning the route.
He silently calculated in his mind that the entire journey from Guilin to Chengdu was about 1,200 kilometers.
If you take the highway, it will only take a day.
But he didn't want to take the highway; he wanted to take the national road to see the mountains and rivers of Guizhou Province.
I just don't know if the roads in Guizhou Province are wide enough for a motorhome to drive in.
He glanced at the winding mountain roads on the map and took a deep breath.
Even if we can't drive in, we have to.
At worst, I'll drive slower. If I drive 100 kilometers a day, I'll eventually get there.
...