Not a worry, not a care. Rivers and mountains everywhere. Though only a two-hour flight from Shanghai, Yangshuo is worlds away from the urban jungle.
I've been away from Shanghai for 14 hours, and I wake in a fuzzy near-dream state convinced for a moment that I haven't left at all, but rather that the city has miraculously transformed around me.
Outside my window, shadowy towers jut into misty skies, creating a sense of endlessness familiar to anyone who knows Shanghai's relentlessly vertical cityscape and persistent atmospheric haze: It goes on forever.