Yangshuo Culture House

Somewhere along the way at Guilin, at our last Chinese hotel, I became a hostel convert. The amenities at the hostels--unless you are staying at pricey four-star hotels--have finally outweighed the better bathrooms. By amenities, I mean the abilities to get tours, train tickets, plane tickets, and laundry all by personnel who usually speak fluent English. Train and plane tickets are a big deal. I haven’t yet had to purchase one on my own. The hostels and hostel owners are all wired into the ticket system, have an agent they will use, and can get couriers to bring the tickets to the hostel. I’m sure the hotels will do the same, but getting everyone to understand each other through their very basic English is difficult indeed. Plus, the clientele at the hostels are ever so much more interesting and friendly.

As a result, I chose Yangshuo Culture House for a few reasons. One, Yangshuo was not a very big place, and I had a feeling that most of the hostels listed were in town and in the bar zone--you could pretty much tell from some of the descriptions. Two, most of the rest of the hostels listed said they were several kilometers outside of town. This sounded interesting, but I couldn’t figure out how we would get into town. If the town was small, would there be buses? Taxis? A couple I had met in Lijiang recommended the Outside Inn, which was owned by some friends of theirs. They would be there in a couple of weeks. I looked at the listing, which looked lovely enough, but then I saw the bedrooms, which touted “a mosquito net around every bed.” Mosquito net? Perhaps this was a little too country. So I looked at Yangshuo Culture House, which was not right in the middle of town, but on the map, did not appear to be too far away either. Maps can be deceiving, but I thought it might be a compromise. The real kicker, though, was that Culture House advertised that you would get three free meals a day with your room. Breakfast is no big deal…toast mostly, and the site said that most visitors did not eat lunch there, but dinner was served every night at 6 pm, and guests were welcome to come and eat a communal dinner. It sounded intriguing, and the hostelworld comments all said that the food was fabulous. Food won out, and I booked us five nights at Culture House.

All of that reasoning flew out the window as we drove up to the hostel. It was located on what seemed to be a dingy looking street, and I was wondering what I had gotten us into this time.

However, once Mr. Wei opened the door, I felt better. The house, while not up to Panba standards, was clean and comfortable. Mr. Wei gave us the family room--a double with two single beds with a private bathroom--because no two single bed rooms were available that night. The second floor held a small kitchen/family area, and the third floor had a computer room, although we had wi-fi in our room, so I seldom went up there. The only weakness in Culture House was that there was no place for the guests to hang out, so we ended up spending most of our free time in our room.

A few hours later, we sat down around the ubiquitous Chinese dinner table, round with a large lazy susan glass top and ample room for 8 to 10 people. We met most of our Culture House compadres while the staff brought out dish after dish after dish of local Chinese foods--I think there must have been 8 to 10 different things to eat! All of them were delicious. In China, you are often given a bowl of rice, a pair of chopsticks, and nothing else, so that you take food off the plates straight into your rice bowl. Interestingly, there are no serving utensils; everyone just takes food with their own chopsticks throughout the meal, and no one blinks an eye. Food aside, it really was a nice way to get to know the other travelers, although Mr. Wei and his family did not join us. I wouldn’t have minded that either.