Introduction
This blog evaluates my last bicycle tour in the southern part of China. A lot of the information has been found on Wikipedia. The hyperlinks have a reference to Wikipedia.
When I was thinking about my next bicycle tour in China I had to evaluate my last bicycle tour in the southern part of China. I really enjoyed my stay in the remote areas of the Yunnan Province and Sichuan Province. Beautiful landscapes in less populated areas, rich of tradition and culture by the chinese minority communities. On the other side I had to close my eyes when confronted with the annoying habits and local cuisine with respect to treatment of animals. I had planned my bicycle tour in such a way that I should visit the tourist areas in the provinces Yunnan, Sichuan and Guangxi. In these areas I visited a lot of buddhist temples (Leshan Giant Buddha), historical monuments and typical chinese markets (old town of Lijiang), which makes me familiair with the different cultures and folk traditions within the chinese society. Great part of my stay in the southern part of China I cycled along agricultural, mining, mountainous, urban and industrial areas, which have no main historical significance on Chinese civilization. The region of south China was particularly noted for its karst features and landscapes as well as rich biodiversity. Shilin Karst near Kunming was one of the three clusters, which is part of the South China Karst, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Due to a big delay in my travel scheme I took a plane from Kunming to Guilin (Guanxi Province), so I could visit the unique scenery along the Li River between Guilin and Yangshuo.
The Yangshuo County is surrounded by karst peaks and bordered on one side by the Li River. When leaving the tourist areau of Guanxi Province I observed that China has developed fastly and is still growing, when travelling from Guilin to administrative regions Macau and Hong Kong. The last part of the bicycle tour was on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, which is one of the most densely urbanised regions in the world and one of the main hubs of China's economic growth. The stunning karst scenery from Guanxi Province changed to a dense populated urban area with skyline that consists of high buildings, skyscrapers and dense road network.
Travelling by bike gives another view of the Chinese society. China is another world compared to the Western World and the country maintains its own rules and values. In a certain way China looks like Europe. Each chinese province has its own social, economic and environmental problems, which should be in control by the central government. After a few days of cycling the surroundings could change dramatically from a stunning scenery to devastating impacts of heavy industries on the environments. Even spoken language or local cuisine could be different, if you enters an other province. Nevertheless, chinese civilization including chinese minority communities is rich of history, tradition and culture which crosses the road of adventurous cyclist.
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