Rice Terraces

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I was told to skip Guilin and go straight to Yangshuo, but I really wanted to see the rice terraces in the north of the provence and did not fee like back tracking, also Yangshuo doesn't have a train station. Guilin was as described, a large city with not much in it. It did have a park that I went into and paid 75yuan to walk up a hill. I really only went because of the picture, but after getting there I was certain it had been photoshopped. It later turns out that the park was free, the only place they checked tickets were to go up this hill and at a couple exhibits that they had to turn on the lights for us when we entered because no one goes in them. It was a waste of 75yuan.

The main problem with Guilin its really the first place where everyone is trying to sell you something, and most of it is a scam. I spent the first hour of trying to get to the rice terrace speaking with "owners" of companies that don't know their own phone number. I eventually decided that a bus straight to Ping An (one rice terrace) was impossible so I got on the local bus at the station and made my way to Dazhai. This route I had to change buses and that is what I was hoping to skip. I finally made it to Dazhai, and from what I saw it seems that tourist buses go to Ping An and local buses go to Dazhai. With that I had a less crowded area, so it all worked out. I really had to hurry though because the last bus to Guilin was at 6pm and I had to take a 1.5hr mini van ride back to the bus station. I only had a few hours at the rice terraces and it took an hour to walk to the first senic area. I had to run back to the mini van and then they stopped a bus going to Guilin on the main road and stopped it for me to hop on. This saved me about an hour of my journey although I wasn't too sure that when I got out of the mini van that both vechiles wouldn't leave me in the middle of the street. Thankfully buses here are like taxis and will pick up anyone and drop you off all along the route. I finally made it back to Guilin, where I made plans to get to Yangshuo the following day. My trip to the rice terraces was another 10 hour day to see one place. If I did not have unlimited time I might start to think that some of these places weren't worth seeing. Thankfully the rice terraces were worth it, its probably one of the first places that I don't think the camera did it justice.

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