Guilin

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February 19th I flew from Shanghai to Guilin. I was kind of sad to leave the group, I had only seen them for one day. But onward! A couple weeks earlier a couple of Phil's friends, Dave and Sean, came to visit for the weekend in Shanghai. Sean and I discovered we were both planning on spending some time in the Guilin area, so we decided to meet up there and travel together for about a week. (Guilin is in Guangxi province in southern China.) Guangxi is famous for its limestone pinnacles and rice terraces. The ride into downtown Guilin from the airport was kind of a tease; Oh look! A peak! Oh wait, I think I can see another one! It was a really small bus, and a packed bus at that, so I had all my stuff piled on my lap, including my huge travel bag, so I couldn't really see much of anything. I was fairly pooped by the time I reached the hostel. I gotta say, I wasn’t very impressed with Guilin. The front desk suggested I wander around the few main streets to find a restaurant, but there wasn’t really anything that good, and everything was really really expensive. There was, however, cotton candy. The best cotton candy I’ve had in China. So that was exciting. Otherwise I’m going to have to give Guilin a poor review. The next day I went to one of the parks, Solidarity Peak, cited by Lonely Planet as costing 15 kuai. It cost 50. 50 kuai to see some gardens and climb a small limestone pinnacle. (which I could do for free in Yangshuo, I’d like to add.) Later in the afternoon before meeting Sean, I went to Seven Star Park, which was a little better. It was pretty, very big, with LOTS AND LOTS of Chinese tourists. I was the only westerner there, as far as I could see. It cost 60 kuai to get in, but this included the Seven Star Cave, which made it almost worth it. The cave was HUGE!!!! (more like lots and lots of caverns.) It took about 30 minutes to walk through the whole thing. The set up was annoying though. They let in about 70 people at a time, and all these people had to follow a Chinese guide. Most of the cave was dark until the guide came along and activated lights on the walls and rocks. This was a drag because who wants to follow a big group of noisy people in an echoing cave moving three feet a minute listening to a guide one can’t understand? I walked ahead, often in darkness, occasionally running back to see some of the sights lit up. It was much more peaceful this way. Overall I enjoyed it. The exit of the cave must have been on the other side of the peak, because once I got out I was LOST. It took me forty minutes to get out of that park. By then Sean had arrived. I returned to the hostel and we had a quiet night, went to “Paul’s Steakhouse,” where the food was, well, lacking, to put it nicely. Our waitress had a BIG crush on Sean. While he was in the bathroom she came up to me and asked “is the handsome boy your boyfriend?” “Nope, just a friend.” “Really?” “Yep.” “REALLY???” “Uh, yep. Really.” Was she amazed that he was single, or that two people of the opposite sex eating dinner together WEREN’T together? Weird. We decided to head to Yangshuo to meet up with Sean's friend Dave (a new Dave) the next morning.

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Comments

[Tamar]

Caves
Did you learn the word for stalagtites and stalagmites in Chinese? I hope they have a trick to remember the words like in English (Stalag-tites have to hold "tight" so they don't fall down. I'm so smart.)