http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , China , Guangxi en-us Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:51:38 BST Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:51:38 BST As dark rain clouds gathered Alex ascended the first route up the steep cliff. His muscular manly fingers gripped the sharp edge of the limestone karst cliff as he gazed up up up......Only 22 meters high Ha I could do that in my sleep he thought to himself. Down below Julie looked up lovingly full of the kind of confidence that only comes from experience. Only 22 meters high Ha He c http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Yangshuo/blog-300065.html I am back in Guilin I was here briefly before setting off to the Rice Terraces to apply for my visa extension to collect my passport from the Public Security Bureau PSB. It takes a week to process which gives me ample time to explore the city and relax a bit after almost two weeks of hiking and being on the move constantly. This visa thing is actually quite funny When I applied for my Chines http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Guilin/blog-299891.html An overnight train ride from the karst peaks of Zhangjiajie away lies a different world altogether the rice terraces of Longji The Dragons's Backbone. After a stopover in Guilin to visit the local PSBoffice to apply for a visa extension for me more on that later on see next blogentry backing up our pictures and buying a camera battery for Karen we headed to the village Longsheng for th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Longji-Rice-Terraces/blog-299429.html Liuzhou's Dragon Pool Park Although barely known Guangxi's City of Liuzhou is one of my favorite places to get away from Guilin for a couple of days. When I first visited the city I hated it. It was four years ago and the city was dirty dingy and the air was brown. It was really bad In the last few years the city has been working to clean itself up and what it has been doing has worked T http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Liuzhou/blog-299034.html Guilin's Imperial PalaceFew visitors to Guilin know that During the Ming and Qing Dynasties Guilin was an imperial city a government center home to the provincial level of imperial examinations and has its own imperial palace which predates the forbidden City in Beijing I recently took a trip to Guilin's Imperial Palace. Located in the center of the city the palace is now home to the art depa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Guilin/blog-299001.html 27 hours to Nanning... the closest big city to Friendship Pass the border crossing to Vietnam. After shopping for food for our long journey we hopped on board the semimodern train in a hard sleeper car. Hard sleeper cars have about 20 rows of tripledecker bunk beds. We had to top bunks next to each other. The bottom bunk functions as a bench during the day. The squatter toilets empty out onto http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Nanning/blog-298244.html