Sat May 24 – The Guilin Glisten

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It’s the more than affectionate name dubbed for the near immediate heat and humidity induced sweat of the region. And boy was it in effect during our travel and visit to Yangshuo. It was stifling heat all weekend and we all sweated ourselves way beyond the limits of comfort. The only time the Guilin Glisten wasn’t in effect was while we slept with the AC blowing, otherwise it was inescapable.



Our travel to Yangshuo was by “river cruise” I guess because it came with lunch it’s not just a boat ride. It was nice, even though the river had about as much traffic as the roads the scenery when looking out was much better. There were maybe 10 boats like what we were on all making the same trip from Guilin to Yangshuo. Each with probably around 80 to 100 passengers, so relatively large boats for a river. Then there were all the small watercraft, scooters of the river. Some were also transporting people along the river, others must have been purely for private use. Though maybe a more personal ride they certainly looked to provide a wetter ride as their “hull” was just a set of bamboo logs, possibly, tied together to form a raft. Then they provided a tent on top for some semblance of a deckhouse. And given that they looked like they were being powered by weed-whacker engines their lack of speed and power in the water was no surprise. I was glad for our more monstrous mode of travel.



During our cruise I was mostly outside on the upper decks enjoying the sights and snapping some photos. Along the riverbend and into the distance the similar pillar mountains as present in the city of Guilin existed. A number of them being particularly recognized for their appearance or for natural markings existing on their exposed rock. Some of these I indicate in the pictures. Lunch on the boat was fine, as with everything else rice and noodles were prevalent with assorted vegetables and meat.



Arriving in Yangshuo four hours after our start we checked into our hotel and then went out amongst the town exploring the many retail shops and stands. With the guys I was with we hiked up one of the pillar mountains along a stone step path to a lookout over the town. Though even a smaller town then Guilin it’s still bustling and only growing larger. From high above the traffic appeared a little less chaotic then when among it but the constant harmony of horns still made it up to us. Returning to the streets two guys I was with wanted to grab some food before dinner and they settled on an Italian place where they ordered pizza. Me and the other guy just sat with and hydrated. Leaving the restaurant we marched in confidence thinking one of us was leading the way back to the hotel, but after 30 minutes and walking past the same restaurant again we realized none of us had out sense of direction calibrated for Yangshuo yet. So as men of course we just kept walking trying something else only to truly determine we really had no idea how to get back and ended up circling back to the restaurant a second and even again a third time. Fortunately the last time we spotted fellow group members and joined them and made it back to the hotel without incident. It turns out we had just turned out of the restaurant the wrong way, had we come out going right instead of left we would have been back to the hotel in 5 minutes instead of wandering around for an hour and a half, hey at least we saw a variety of the town.



Dinner that night was at restaurant “famous” for its beer fish entrée. All it should be famous for is how many bones they’re in it. But it was pretty good otherwise, definitely the best thing we ordered there along with these fried pork stuffed sweet potato things. The sweet and sour pork sauce was pretty bland and the rice was sticky as ever. A number of the other students ordered American dishes like pizza or burgers. Heard pretty bad things about those choices, the vegetarian burger one girl order turned out to just be a potato patty, and the pizza was described as disintegrating in the mouth. Looking back the lack of locals or at least Chinese nationals could have clued us in that this place might not be much good.

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Photos

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Water buffalo

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Ship's stern kitchen

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"Crown" hill

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"Cats ears" hill

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Heewan, heewan its Eeyore the donkey and companion

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Nine painted horses hill

Comments

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