Bicycling Through South Asia’s Karst Regions

Sam and Erin are a newlywed couple taking an 18-month bicycle tour of Asia and Europe… and they’re bringing Sierra Blogging Post along for the ride.

We’re sending them Sierra Trading Post gear and they’re sending us great stories and photographs from their adventure. They just sent me their latest dispatch from the karst regions of South Asia…

Cycling Through the Karst Regions

Our time bicycling through the karst regions of Asia offered some of the most breathtaking scenery of our trip so far. Karst regions, formed when limestone bedrock dissolves, appear all over the globe, but some of the most famous are found in southern Asia: in the Guilin area of southern China, the northern mountains of Vietnam, and the remarkable coastal karst area off the coast of Vietnam, known as Halong Bay.

The first area we rode through is near Guilin and Yangshou in southern China, the area that inspired the familiar Chinese ink-and-water paintings of mist-clad cone peaks. Rivers wend through the peaks, with villagers living along side the rivers, pushing their boats with long poles as if it were traditional Chinese art come to life.

We loved being able to bicycle in villages far off the tourist path to get a sense of this calm traditional life. Bicycling through karst areas means frequent, gentle climbs, which offered us time to gaze at the scenery, and every descent took us into new, idyllic valley scenery. Guilin and Yangshuo are the area’s tourist centers, bustling with tourists and organized tours, including hikes and rock climbing on the area’s karsts.

Caves are common in karst areas, and the ones we visited were huge, the size of airports. Many of the caves are considered sacred and have been used for millenia by Buddhist monks. Ancient Buddhist inscriptions on rocks and stalactites can still be seen. They devout still visit shrines inside the caves.

We also visited some of the high elevation karst areas in far northern Vietnam, just south of the border with China, near Meo Vac. We spent several days bicycling, rising in elevation to reach the area, but the strenuous rides were well worth it – it is the most remote karst scenery we visited.

The hill tribes that live in the area farm and harvest crops in among the karsts, and we enjoyed visiting with the people we passed, especially the children, who were always so curious about what we were doing. Because villages in the area are so widely spaced, and tourist infrastructure is so basic, we camped several times on our trip to Meo Vac, often partway up a karst on an unused field, often the only flat space we could find.

The final karst region we visited in southern Asia was Halong Bay near Hanoi, off the coast of Vietnam. Halong Bay boasts over 2,000 karst peaks emerging from the water, many of them with caves inside, and we chose a two-day cruise that took us to the Bay’s highlights.

Our ship was a recreation of Chinese junk with a colorful orange sail, adding to the ambience of the scene. It was a beautiful, peaceful way to explore this world, now protected by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. The cruise stopped at a couple of islands to take tours of caves and for little hikes. We spent the night on the junk, anchored in an area with all other boats to protect the coral and sea life. We lso toured a Halong Bay floating village.

Exploring Asia’s karst regions offers more than stunning scenery, it offers a glimpse into ancient, traditional ways of life and the chance to see how adaptable humans are to their environment. From the highland hill tribe farmers plowing tiny plots between karst rocks to the floating fishing villages of Halong Bay, our tours through Asia’s karst regions were some of the most memorable parts of our trip so far.