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“The river winds like a blue silk ribbon while the hills are erect like green jade hairpins” - so wrote the poet Han Yu in the Tang Dynasty
Guilin is in the Guangxi Province and a one hour flight journey from Hangzhou. We arrived at around 9.30 in the evening as was relieved to see that there were mini coaches providing a shuttle service into the city, no kamikaze taxi drivers this time!
The driver even dropped us off at our hotel door for no extra charge.
This hotel we decided was the worst we had stayed in and despite its size and signs boasting its internet and restaurant facilities especially for western travellers it fell short by a long way and had it not been late and we were so tired we would probably have gone else where, never mind. The bathroom only just passed the ER Test! Having booked the day cruise trip on the River Li at the airport we were in for an early start the next day so we just went to sleep and so turned the lights off and ignored the grubby interior.
Fortunately we were in a small minibus with just one other
couple so we managed to avoid the large coach loads of people who arrived following a flag or umbrella to the ferry terminal. We did however have to queue and push our way on to the boat along with hoards of other tourists. According to the guide book 3 million tourists leave the quayside here every year to travel down the River Li and at considerable cost. The all inclusive ticket was £35 each, an expensive day out. That is one thing we have noticed, not only is there a Tourist and Chinese price ticket many of the ‘big’ attractions are very expensive to visit, unlike Thailand when we went on a two day trek into the jungle, stayed overnight in wooden huts, were fed amazing freshly cooked food rode elephants and travelled on bamboo rafts down stream for a mere £22! Now that’s what I call good value!
Still having deliberately planned a visit here we were determined to go the full monty and have the door to door service as our time in Guilin was limited.
The cruise along the Li River ( Li Jiang) from Guilin south to Yangshuo passes through landscape that seems lifted out
of a Chinese scroll painting. The river weaves its way between sheer-sided karst peaks, all weathered into intriguing shapes and interspersed with rural villages and bamboo groves. The boat had an upper viewing deck in full sun (today it was 34 degrees and very hot) with no shade where you could enjoy the fantastic scenery. The karsts or rocky peaks were as high as 300metres and were covered in green trees clinging to the rock face. Some were odd shapes and had wonderful names like ‘Penholder Peak’, ‘Dragon Head Hill’, ‘Nine Horse Fresco Hill’ and ‘Eight Immortals Crossing the River’. Their mystical shapes merged together in grey hazy mist as they pointed up into the sky. Photographing them was difficult and due to their size a single photo did not do them justice even the video camera could not zoom out far enough to fit them in the frame.
Water buffalo grazed in the shallow waters and farmers with grass hats were bent at right angles weeding the rice fields along the way. There were people washing their clothes and pots and pans on the river edge whilst the children waved to the passers by. Huge black Cormorant Birds stood tethered on perches awaiting the evening fishing trip to dive for fish for the farmers who place rings around their necks to prevent the birds swallowing the fish and only swallowing the smaller ones providing the farmer with a catch, he can have up to 10 birds all fishing at once. People were scraping a living farming the fields and trying to sell their handicrafts alongside the cruise boats as they motored by, paddling up to the boat and tying their bamboo rafts precariously alongside, a dangerous occupation.
Dinner was served on the boat and we were even offered (Snake pickled Whiskey) to try, something we declined along with the usual postcard and guide book sell. Must give them their due the Chinese are very good business people the sell pitch is always relentless.
We disembarked at Yangshuo, 70km south of Guilin and was met by a barrage of street vendors and craft stores selling ‘local’ souvenirs, all rather commercialised and designed for all travellers needs! You can be sure of a ‘good price’ and can usually get the inflated tourist price down to 25% or less of the original price. ‘You give me good price lady’ is the usual cry. Still cannot resist a bargain and shopping is such great fun I succumbed to some Silk tops to send back to the UK as presents, shame the sizes are not big enough for me, we are not all small like the Chinese.
From here we went to an idyllic spot aptly named ‘Shangri-La’ an area with a beautiful lake surrounded by more karst mountains and rural scenery with rice fields and Mulberry bushes, foliage grown for the silk worm to munch on. Everywhere here was very green with rustic farm buildings alongside the lake casting reflections in the still water. We saw some local Tujia People demonstrate their handicrafts and skills in wood work and weaving and the most incredible hand sewn silk ties with no pattern to follow that take 25 days each to complete. Traditional crafts and skills are handed down from generation to generation some very ancient Chinese methods are still used today. The Chinese were the first to use an abacus and introduced paper money as currency as well as develop the first printing techniques to record Chinese character lettering. The whole setting was in a beautiful wooden building with carved lattice windows over looking the countryside and lily filled lake.
We returned to Guilin and went in search of a restaurant recommended in the Lonely Planet Guide. We asked for directions and a helpful man pointed the way to a completely different restaurant hoping for a commission tip for bringing unsuspecting tourists to his friends restaurant. When we asked if this the correct place one waitress said yes and the other said no! So with a little more footwork we found the Zhengyang Souper Restaurant and enjoyed a fabulous meal guided by a very helpful waiter who spoke English! We sampled delicious Cantonese Roast Duck, Guilin Pork, Pork in Honey with Roasted nuts, Pigeon, Sweet and Sour Chicken, Steamed and Fried Dumplings, Mixed stir fried vegetables and steamed Rice all for the princely sum of £23/$45 including drinks. Where would you get that in Newbury or Brisbane for that matter?
We then roamed the streets and found a night market selling the most awful tat and Olympic memorabilia. We managed to buy 40 flags for 1yuan each ( £3/$6) and a huge flag to hang in the garden when we have our Olympic BBQ around the pool! We made some people laugh when they tried to sell us a flag we offered them one of our 40 in exchange! I think they wondered what we were going to do with so many!! Everyone in Guilin were getting very excited as the Olympic Torch is going to arrive in the city on Friday 6th June so everyone wants to wave a flag and wear a t-shirt! In a way we are disappointed not to be part of the ceremony but the city will be closed down early with road blocks and the army in situ and everywhere will come to a stand still, we have experienced crowds and pushing in China and would rather avoid it especially if the temperature continues to sore up into the 35˚. Not many more days to go until the opening day, everyone here is so proud of the fact the games is being held in China. There is talk of the hotels all being fully booked and people are practicing hard the opening ceremony show. I cannot really wonder if they are ready for the whole world to descend upon the country, getting to the events will be interesting when all the roads come to a stand still and a parking lot when no one can move, they will have to leave designated lanes open only for the Olympic competitors to travel on otherwise they will never get there! I hope they remember to carry some translated help cards for when they get lost!
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