Blogs from Guilin, Guangxi, China, Asia
April 27th 2012
It was refreshing to wake up in a tropical resort in a tropical rain shower. The previous night we went for a swim after the hoard of 80+ Shanghai American School students had their pool party, so we felt somewhat energised. I am not too sure who runs the Yangshuo Resort Hotel, but it is a foreign style Banyan Tree wannabe type hotel with all the amenities but none of the expertise. It seems to be the Shanghai expat weekend retreat, which is probably a good reason to avoid it. My room has an amazing bath in the center of the room, but I am missing my $20 dollar room at the Dong Village with it's water faucet and riverside views. We headed for the lovely Yangshuo West Street, and got on a river raft down ... read more
April 18th 2012
Jinxiu and Mengshan county is right next to Lipu township, also claimed to have Yao community, especially in Jinxiu region, so I went over to check out some markets. Xiayi and Xinxu in Mengshan county both could see some Yao woman, they all kept their headdress. Mengshan has its place in the Chinese history, the revolted of the Taiping Kingdom army had made their name here and began the short 13 years glory(1851-1864). Now there was only a small shrine said to be where the upraising began that visitor could see. The Mengshan town didn't has much to offer to tourist, 2 small hilltop could hike up but offer no view! 3 extreme huge banyan trees stood on the north end of town, but the surrounding construction work stop me from hang around too long! About ... read more
April 15th 2012
11-04-2012 Lipu is a small town further down from Yangshaw in the southern most part of Guilin region. famous for the vegetable - taros. that made a delicious pork dish called "liyukourou", but I couldn't able to located any places that serve this dishes in town, instead you could find package sell in supermarket that you could cook it back home. well...same like the famous ham dishes in Xuanwei, nowhere I could taste it while there, but I could buy in supermarket. Like any township in Guilin region, they all claimed to have wonderful karst hillforms sites, indeed...I saw couple of nice scene along the road on the way here, but...I guess I was a bit numb of Karst hillform after so many years around souther China. Beside...my main aim was looking for the Yao in ... read more
April 8th 2012
Tried to do some look around in Longsheng area, but the weather wasn't promising, rain and cloudy. Longsheng town had nothing that could remind me of the tiny village that I had visited almost 20 years ago, now it was a town with neon-lite all through the night. Back then I remember the guesthouse by the river and the water-wheel, a single hammock which I had spend many lazy afternoon. By evening I walk up the trail behind to a Miao village, where they offered you-cha the oil tea and food for a small fee. now...seldom traveler stay here, most of them head right away up to the terrace area where spread with guesthouses. Me...no...I guess I had enough rice terrace picture for the last 10 years. beside...I am not really willing to spend 80 yuan ... read more
January 27th 2012
27-01-2012 til 03-02-2012 Finally today the rain has subsided and I've found energy to type about our last destination in China. 3 weeks ago now I suppose but hey. We slowly awoke to the scenery of misshapen limestone peaks between flat open lush green grounds (paddies and fields) shooting past in the train. I knew we were close! Upon arrival we spotted a group of 4 backpackers which had been sat in Shanghai station. Wandering round the corner down the side of the road towards our hostel I jokingly said they'd probably follow us to the same place. Upon arrival in the Wada hostel we were surprised to see Bettina whom we had met and drank with in Beijing. Her job hadn't started yet so she had a week off to herself to spend in the ... read more
January 22nd 2012
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg311/draftwrite/China-Shanghai-Guangxi-2012/ …..why travel, not only during the school holidays, always a pain even in sparsely populated countries like Australia, let alone the world's most populous country when over a billion people seem to be trying to go somewhere all at once? Because we're teachers & that's when we get our time off. It can lead to hair-raising last minute changes of travel arrangements, crowds that most of you might see temporarily at a big ball game constantly around you, queues at ticket offices that I could not imagine before I came to China &, in the case of the Spring Festival, it's in the middle of winter. There's nothing for it but to get your head down, elbows out & dive in..... …..off the bus at... read more
January 5th 2012
We arrived yesterday to Guilin, by train from Shenzen (HK). It took us awile finding the ticket office in Shenzen and to order the tickets. The guy in the office repeted many times that "train no tickets tomorrow, today. What time you go ?" After some more confusions he got the manager that helped us book 2 tickets for soft sleep carriage in the afternoon. When we got on the train we gladly saw a sign telling us that this was a non smoking wagon, but it did not took a long time for us to realize that they dont give a f##k. Lucky for us they did not smoke inside the sleeping compartments. My cold that i had from the AC from the hotel in HK had now got worse and i got to bed ... read more
December 20th 2011
Yesterday was tough, long, beautiful, frustrating, grueling, rewarding..... We took advantage of the two free mountain bikes available at our hostel to take a bike ride to some of the small villages North of Guilin. The bikes were in pretty rough shape but still better than a lot you see people riding around China. Many bikes you see people on here are the same bikes you'd see on top of a scrap metal heap in the back of a pick-up truck in Chicago. We had a great ride getting out of the city, riding with the morning rush hour traffic. Because the traffic flow is so crazy in town you really just have to look ahead and concentrate on not hitting the people in front of you. We got lost probably five times before we even ... read more
December 18th 2011
We arrived in Guilin today after a twenty two hour train ride. The train was very exciting. We got off to an interesting start as we came very close to missing the train. Not only did we underestimate the total time it would take to get to the station but we got held up at every possible junction on the Shanghai metro. We arrived at the station about twelve minutes before our train was scheduled to depart. The railway station is enormous and very difficult to navigate for a foreigner. We looked like the scene from Home Alone while we sprinted through the train station with our packs on but, thankfully we made it with just a few minutes to spare. The landscape leaving Shanghai was pretty remarkable. For about two hours or so outside the ... read more
November 16th 2011
OK, this is a long delayed posting and my excuse is that I am getting engaged in a variety of activities that leave me little left over. So, this will be a photo only posting to get out some news, I hope you find it of interest... read more
