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Published: November 16th 2010
Haunting
Could almost be aloneOur China trip almost finally over and one of our last destinations was the city of Guilin. The reason we decided to come here was to take a cruise along the Li River to Yangshuo and hopefully get a brief glimpse of the more rural China. Due to the airport delays we arrived late to our accommodation, Riverside Hostel, but once again we were really impressed with the standard. Down a little backstreet by the river (as you would expect because of the name) made the location fairly quiet even though close enough to all the action!
Guilin means “osmanthus forest”, which is probably why there are an abundance of these trees planted along the rather nice promenade. Even sampled some tea made from its leaves - very nice. Probably the first thing you notice about Guilin is that it is geared up for the tourist trade, with an abundance of nice cafes and interesting eating establishments. Yet again we were taken back by the size of the city, what we thought would be a small provincial town (when will we learn) turned out to be a city with approximately 5 million inhabitants and sees about 15 million tourists pass
Twin Pagodas
Guilin by night through each year. It seems to boast quite a bit to see if you are here for a few days such as Elephant Trunk Hill (hill which looks like an elephant of course), Fubo Shan (a peak with grottos and stuff) and a miniature Forbidden City where the Ming rulers lived between 1372 and 1650. Like everything in China each attraction eats into the budget so we decided that for our free day we would simply walk around, take in the peaceful ambience of the riverside promenade, stop in a few cafes for something to drink and just people watch. Instead of us people watching we, again, turned out to be a bit of a side-show ourselves catching admiring (or so we like to think) stares from the locals. So we guessed that although the city sees some 15 million tourists each year very few must be westerners.
The evening found us walking around the local area in search of a place to eat and after looking at potential menu choices sitting in cages (such fare as duck, tortoise and rat) we decided to eat at a place recommended in the Rough Guide & Lonely Planet, Yi Yuan, which
Ronery Boatman
On his way to try to sell had decided that displaying its livestock was not necessary - phew. We decided that we had enjoyed Peking Duck so much in Beijing we would give duck a try again here. BIG mistake. A couple of seconds after we ordered the chef came out of the kitchen making for the back entrance with our dinner tucked under her arm, just plucked from the pond - total freak out. To make matters worse when the dinner eventually arrived they had taken off all the meat and left us with just deep fried bones and head. We felt the need to complain and question where all the meat was, but the response was “you eat already”. Well we may have become forgetful on our travels, but we were both pretty certain that we hadn’t eaten it! There was obviously not going to be any joy, so we paid up and left but making it known that the meal was crap and service more so. Rough Guide led us astray here, but maybe it was just what we ordered!
After a great night’s sleep in our nice hostel our transport arrived nice and early to take us to our cruise boat down
Loving the Li
Quite spectacular the Li River. A transfer from the mini-bus to a larger coach and finally on to our boat for the trip and we were away. Its origin is the Cat Mountain in the Xing'an County which is to the north of Guilin and it runs through the whole eastern area of Guanqxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. It is 437 km long and winds its way through bizarre shaped imposing karsts brutally carved by the elements, reminiscent of Ha Long Bay - same same but different. Hanyu, a great poet of Tang Dynasty, wrote "The river looks like a blue ribbon, And the mountains are emerald hairpin." What a really pretty vision this invokes, and when slowly meandering down the river we could see why the scenery inspired such poetic words. The gentle flow of the lovely clear water provided a contrast to the ruggedness of the hills all topped off by scenes of verdant countryside, water buffalo grazing alongside the river, farmers tending their fields and locals plying their trade along the water on bamboo rafts. How idyllic, if we could just get rid of all the other cruise boats vying for a good position on the water. If you closed
Money Shot
Have you ever seen this scene your eyes you could just imagine you were all alone for a moment until, inevitably, the blast of a horn indicates that the boat behind you wants to get past. However, saying that it really didn’t detract from the beautiful scenery around us - the China that we had imagined. Along the way our guide, Cherry, pointed out some of the most spectacular karst formations for us, again with great names such as “Eight Immortals Crossing the River” and “The Painted Hill of Nine Horses”. Apparently, with a bit of imagination, you could see the forms of horses in the latter one - well obviously our imaginations weren’t that good that day because no matter how we looked at it there were definitely no horse shapes there - but nevertheless impressive.
Our cruise destination was the town of Yangshuo, which means “Bright Moon” and is some 70 km from Guilin. Everyone we had met on our travels had raved about Yangshuo and on our arrival we could see why. It is nestled amongst the most beautiful karst scenery, absolutely breathtaking. Not only that, but walking down the main tourist drag unveiled a host of reasonably priced cafes, restaurants and
Now you have
The real money shot shops - heaven indeed. There was an optional tour we could have gone on here, but we just wanted to meander around the town and see what it had to offer. Our first stop being a coffee shop for a well-earned drink and piece of cheesecake whilst sitting outside in the sun with the rugged karst peaks as a backdrop - absolutely fantastic. A little bit of wandering around the shopping streets, a stroll along the river and a final stop in another coffee shop and our time was up and we had to meet our transport for the bus ride back to the hostel. Once back in Guiling, a nice meal in a small café along the promenade finished off our day a treat.
Our overall thoughts of both Guilin and Yangshuo are that we would definitely love to come back to this area and explore it some more. Both places had a relaxed vibe to them, somewhat different to the hustle and bustle of many of the cities we have been to. It was also nice to get away from the crowds for a while, which seems almost impossible in China.
And finally …… Nanning
Cafes & Chillin
in lovely Yangshuo Our very final destination in China was the town of Nanning and this was purely to get our Vietnam visas and travel over the Chinese border and into Vietnam. Our hostel made the arrangements for the visa and we paid a bit extra to get it all processed in two days. Everything seemed to go according to plan and as expected within two days we had the visas and could finally book our overnight soft sleeper train to Vietnam. Our hostel, Lotusland, was quite small and had a nice atmosphere but there were two drawbacks; the room was not that great and its location was down a road where they seemed to beat panels of aluminium all day long. This in itself I suppose wouldn’t be too bad but also, like most of China, the area seemed to be undergoing some significant redevelopment - therefore there was dust absolutely everywhere. In every nook and cranny there was dust which filled your lungs and settled on every surface - not great. Luckily we were only there for a few days and to be quite truthful we were more than happy to leave. There’s a nice park with some lakes but other
What a picture
shame she's in the way (guess who's gonna get slapped) than that it’s an industrial city. The one good thing about the place, just round the corner was probably the best restaurant we found in China, English menu at the same price as the Chinese one and really nice, good value meals. Not worth staying for though. So it’s off on the overnight train to Vietnam.
As we leave, we have mixed feelings on China, the great things are really great. The Wall, the Terracotta Army, the Shanghai Acrobats and the Li River. These things are must sees BUT travelling in China is tough. Our fault we know, why should they learn English when 1 billion Mandarin speakers also want to visit, well because they invite people in, that’s why, and also it is the international language of business. Reading a foreign language isn’t normally too bad, for example Vietnamese, as long as the letters look like letters, when your hotel sign says 爱你很久酒店 who knows what it’s going to be like (try Google translator). We’ve got used to eating with sticks but writing in pictures will never happen. China is booming, believe the press on that, a lot of the rural population are relocating to the cities because
of better paying jobs, the rural poverty line here is $174 per year, this urbanisation means there is no room for niceties like space, it’s stack em high & work em hard. I guess that’s progress and we in the west shouldn’t complain it’s why the iSheep can get their iPhones so cheap. Overall we are glad we came, it’s an experience we’ll never forget and may even return to fill in some gaps. Would we recommend it, yes, just.
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Ray
non-member comment
Chris and Lisa, It is nice to see your blog. My family is going to visit Guilin on private tour. Know that you only eat bone for duck meal, that is terrible. I love China, beautiful country, but the customer service and the attitude of desire to earn money fast, worry me. Even before I start my trip, airfare seems like share market, it changes each day. I do not know can get train ticket. Do u think Li River is nice at late Nov and early Dec Anyhow, do not know you have been to Halong Bay, a nice place, we enjoy the trip there; try Sappa ; these are another place like Guilin, if you miss it...