Guilin city

Guilin city, 1 and 2 May 2008 - We arrived in Guilin at 1:00pm. It took us 5 hours to travel by bus from Nanning to Guilin (500km). Our first impression on the city is the sweet osmanthus trees on both sides of the streets and we saw them everywhere in the city. Guilin means "forest of sweet osmanthus" (Quế Lâm). 80% of the trees in this city are sweet osmanthus trees, 20% are peach trees and others.

Our Chinese tour guide pointed at a board on the roof of a large building and said "There are 2 rivers and 4 lakes in Guilin." Guilin is located in the north east of Guangxi province. The population in Guilin is only 2-3 million people, 68% of them are the Hanzu people (người Hán). The 2 famous rivers in Guilin are "Li" river (sông Ly) and "Tao Hua" river (sông Đào Hoa). The city is surrounded by the rivers and mountains and very famous for its unique scenery. During the winter time, it's very cold in Guilin. The coldest temperature could be -2°C.

After lunch at a restaurant by the Li river, we travelled 20km to Lu Di Yan cave (hang Lô Địch Nham). Along the stairs up to the cave, there were some nice ads for the Olympic Games in Beijing this year. One of the reasons I chose to visit China this year was that I wanted to see how the Chinese are going to celebrate this event, even though Nanning and Guilin are not the places where the Olympic Games will be organized.

The cave is very large and the colorful lightings inside the cave make it look beautiful. However, I've seen many caves before, so I left the people on the tour behind me, checked out the place quickly then got out of the cave. It was very dark inside the cave, so I did take only 2-3 photos.

Along the way to the car parking site, there are many souvenir shops. An old woman offered 50 Yuan for a souvenir of the Elephant Trunk Hill, which is the symbol of Guilin. I said "20 Yuan" and she agreed at once. Later, I also bought a set of Guilin's postcards (3 Yuan). I'm glad I bought them, as I didn't see them anywhere at the places I visited next day.

We spent some hours in the evening visiting a night market near our hotel. It was May Day, so there were many Chinese and tourists at the area. I was looking forward to the boat trip along the Li river next morning and seeing the Elephant Trunk Hill. When I woke up in the morning, it was raining. Our tour guide said that at this time of the year, it often rains in the morning, then sun shines in the afternoon. We got into the boat at 8:30am and would cruise for an hour along the Li river. It was misty with grey sky. I brought an umbrella with me, so I climbed up to the roof of the boat and took some photos in the rain. Sometimes the lens was wet, our Vietnamese tour guide, who helped me take photos, had to clean it with his shirt. The Áo Dài (Vietnamese traditional dress) that I wore and umbrella brightened up my photos. Without them, the mountains and scenery would look darker. We passed by the Elephant Trunk Hill and some other mountains. If the sun shines, those mountains must look beautiful. I was impressed by a mountain that has the shape of an old man sitting by the river and catching fish.

Along the Li river, I saw many people walking on the banks, catching fish, washing clothes and other tourist boats. Some boats are very simple, only 3-4 people travel by those boats, like a photo in my blog. Many tourists on other boats also waved to us, some even said "Vietnam" when they saw me, as they realized where I came from based on my traditional dress. At a certain point, the boat had to turn back and I took a photo of other boats doing the same thing.

My trip to Nanning and Guilin was the 6th visit to China during the last 8 years (since April 2000). I've been to 14 major cities in China (Nanning - Guilin - Hangzhou - Suzhou - Shanghai - Nanjing - Beijing - Hong Kong - Macau - Guangzhou - Shenzen - Zhuhai - Kunming - Shilin), 3 border towns (Hekou - Dongxing - Pingxiang) and also saw other many cities along the way. There are some reasons why I travelled many times in China. First, it's easy to get into China from Vietnam. Secondly, the tours are inexpensive. The last reason, there is a lot to learn in their 5,000 year history and culture. As I cannot speak Chinese, I had to take a tour from Vietnam, so that the local guides could show me around. The unpleasant experience when taking a tour to China is that the local guides took us to many shops, for example, pharmacy, pearl, medicinal herbs, ceramics, tea and candy etc. During my short visit to Nanning and Guilin, the local guide took us to 8 shops and said it was a regulation fixed by the Chinese government. At times, I was really tired of that and it felt like torture seeing the same things so many times in different cities with expensive price tags. If I could speak Chinese, I would travel on my own, like I did in many countries.

There are some places in China I haven't seen yet and wanted to visit, for example, Xi'an, Daly and Lijiang. I'm not sure if I will ever visit China again, as it takes too much time to travel overland to those places. The tours including flights cost approx. US$700. If so, I prefer flying to a new country.

The photos in this blog were taken at Lu Di Yan cave (hang Lô Địch Nham) and Elephant Trunk Hill (Núi Vòi Voi) on the Li river (sông Ly) in Guilin city, China.

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