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Jinjiang Prince's Palace
A rather fine old palace at the centre of Guilin. has a very steep hill/cliff you can climb up in the middle for the following view over gulin... Our next stop was back into normal China again. We reentred China via Hong Kong and Shenzhen , where there were possibly the busiest customs we've ever seen. Once through the checkpoint we visited the public toilets, and by golly knew we were back in China now.
Our next destination was Guilin, quite a way across the country, and we'd decided to make the journey by sleeper train. We booked cushy soft seats, which got us bunks with tassles on and our own kettle to use. We travelled through the night and got off the train just after dawn. We definately recommend it, and didn't have much trouble sleeping except when the Chinese gentleman we were sharing the compartment with had to disembark at 3am.
Guilin is a pretty southern Chinese small City, popular with Chinese tourists for its fine palace, strange limestone formations and large caves. By this time on our journey we were starting to tire of touristing a little and so our pace of sightseeing slowed; however there were a number of cool things to see. While we where in Guilin it was also the end of the spring festival period and there were large number
View from Duxiu Feng
in the middle of Jinjian Palace, views all around of fireworks being set off and fire crackers being ignited. We learned that most of these despite their size where not part of an official display but where let off by private citizens in the local park. It is a matter of status to have the largest most spectacular fireworks and we understand it is not a quiet night for the fire department.
Gulin is a fairly standard modern Chinese city set quite attractively by a number of canals which criss-cross the town, it is on a flat plane surrounded by limestone hills which are carved into strange shapes by the many rivers and streams. We also met Chris’s parents who were on a tour of China, and we joined their tour group on a rather luxurious boat trip down the river to Yangshao.
The trip down the river takes you through amazing deep limestone valleys which are the inspiration for a lot of traditional Chinese brush paintings. We saw a number of fishermen on bamboo boats catching fish using cormorants, and Amy even caughta snap of some genuine water buffalo (she guesses) taking a bath. Cormorant fishing is like this: a piece of string is tied around
A golden rat
there where many rats celebrating the chinese year of the rat around China. This one is in Seven star park near Guilin the cormorant’s neck to prevent it swallowing the fish it catches; however according to custom the cormorants are allowed to eat every 7th fish. Our guidebook says that if they are allowed less, they refuse to work. More, and they get full too quickly and become lazy.
Yangshao is a Chinese village with most of its original buildings preserved, plus the standard set of large new high street shops grafted onto the town in a new main street at right angles to the old one. It seemed very popular with Western tourists, and the the main street was stocked with some souveniers we actually considered buying. Usually, after the first few Chinese tourist spots you visit, you begin to notice that all the souveniers come from the same factory. However, we do feel obliged to point out the following:
Beware: pickpockets operate in this area and Chris’s dad had some money stolen by one.
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