health mud

as soon as we got to yangshuo, we checked into our hotel (we'd booked it for four nights, but they only had room for two...go figure...so the guy at the desk hooked us up with another place for the last two nights), and wandered the town looking for something cheap to eat.  just as we were walking down Xi Jie (west street) where all the western restaurants and foreigners are, a middle-aged chinese man poked me on the arm and asked what we were looking for.  i told him we just wanted to get some regular chinese food at regular chinese prices.  he chuckled and started talking about some place down some road over there.  i nodded, and we started walking in the direction he pointed.  after a moment, we noticed he was still following us.  after asking what was going on, he finally came out and told us that he owned a bike shop that rented bicycles, electric bikes, and scooters and wanted to give us a tour of yangshuo the next day.  we visited his shop, talked prices for a while, and ended up promising that we'd be back at eight the next morning.  for less than $13 US per scooter and $3.50 per person, we rented scooters for the day and mr. su took us around to different places of interest.  the very first place we went was the "magical cave".  the cave itself was pretty cool, though it would have been way cooler if it were more natural.  instead of picking our way through stalagmites like i had though we might, we walked through the cave on a paved concrete sidewalk lined with different colored neon glowtubes.  the different colors of neon placed throughout the cave made it seem pretty ghetto, but it was still fun.  the best part was undoubtedly the end, where we found the long-awaited and much-anticipated mud pit (health mud, as the advertisements in the tourist pamphlets had bragged). greg and i were the first to strip down to our board shorts and jump in.  and it was DISGUSTING!  clumps of goo floated on the surface and our feet sunk more than six inches into thick, sticky mud.  before anyone else could get in, we were already throwing mud at each other from across the 30 foot diameter pit.  by the time we got out, we had all wrestled in the mud, slid down the slick embankment right into the goo, and floated on our backs (an easy feat, considering the density of the mud!).  kris came out of the back float missing a ring and unable to open his eyes (apparently health mud isn't so great on the ol' conjunctiva!).  we spent a LOT of time trying to get all the grime out of our suits, ears, and eh...everywhere.  my once glaringly white board shorts are now an attractive shade of orange mud. great pictures though.