Guilin By Aishling

---

Sunday 2nd March
So we arrived in Guilin delighted to have the air hostess inform us that it is 17deg C! warmth at last!! And it was! so we got ourselves out of the airport where there was only one option to get into town, an airport bus which was 20Y (2euro)...pretty expensive in china terms! So we got on a crappy minibus and sat there for about 20mins waiting to go until they moved us to a bigger coach where we sat for another 30 or 40mins at which stage we were at boiling point!! Finally we moved and they took us to a hotel at the edge of town, we had to get a taxi then to our hostel! the first driver didn't know where the hostel was so we'd to get back out of the car, take our bags out and he drove away! nice i know!! the next guy did and off we went. The area of guilin is so different to the rest of china, very countryside-ish and theres a beautiful river and mountains around, very pretty! So we checked into the hostel and headed off exploring, we walked along the riverside where we saw "elephant trunk hill", a mountain which looks like an elephant dipping its trunk into the river, kinda cool! we had planned on visiting the park in the town but we shocked to discover that they were charging an entrance fee (we've discovered this in a lot of places, charging to see natural creations, they try get every bit of money they can from tourists, very annoying). So since it was getting late we felt it wouldn't be worth our while so instead got some cakes from a bakery (the cakes are amazing here, like eating a little piece of heaven, so light and yummy!!)....and we sat by the riverside admiring the view eating our cake! once it got dark and cooler we headed back to the hostel and then went to the night market which was stalls and stalls of the same crap so not much bought at all, all good for the backpack carrying!! We then went to see the Twin Towers (not the NY ones now obviously), theres a Sun Tower and Moon tower and they're lit by night and are beautiful, they are in the middle of the lakes and you can walk all around the lakes which are lit up and it was all very scenic and rosmantic for the 3 of us!!! Off to bed reasonably early then as we planned on climbing one of the peaks in the morning.

Monday 3rd March
Up we got at 8.30am and headed off for our climbing!! Things quickly changed when we discovered that they were also charging an entrance fee for this 50Y which is the equivalent of a 3 course dinner and wine here....no way Jose! we decided we didn't wanna do it that much and instead went to the park which we had been at the previous day, this time we paid the entrance fee tho!! So in we went and walked around for hours, there were some hills in the park so we got to climb those instead and still got some amazing views and photos, we were wreaked by the end of it and got back to the hostel by noon to check out. We headed to the bus station then to get the bus to Yangshuo, a little town an hours drive from Guilin which is meant to be very picturesque. We got tickets with the help of a policeman (everywhere in china is swarming with policemen or soldiers which is intimidating at first but we're used to it now and they're helpful!!) and got on the bus. We were all so tired that we tried to sleep on the hour journey but it was impossible since the bus driver was insistent on beeping at every pedestrian or car or rickshaw or bike he passed so it was an hour of beeping!! i mean literally he beeped once or twice every minute, i was fit to kill him by the end of the trip!! very irritating!!

---