Guilin, Longji and the Li River

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Yesterday morning I arrived in Hanoi, just after 5am. I spent the previous day in Nanning, a boring city in the south of China, fairly close to Vietnam. For backpackers and tourists, Nanning seems to serve as a gateway to Vietnam from China - there isn't much other reason to go there, at least for backpackers, and they all had the same feelings.

Before Nanning, I spent the previous 10 or so days in the Guilin area. The city of Guilin is not especially exciting - it has nice parks and rivers, but the main draw of the area is the Longji rice terraces a couple hours northwest and the Li river area south of Guilin. After I first arrived, I spent two days in Guilin to see the city. There is a decent night market with the usual touristy stuff and some fruit stands. I didn't see much other food options. There is a lot of fruit grown around Guilin - lots of oranges, persimmons, pomelos and others. There is also a decent selection of street food carts, but nothing was especially exciting. My hostel had decent food, so I ate there a few times as well. The hostel was nice, a bit smaller than the others I had stayed in. The room was fine, although it was an interior room without an outside window (only one to the hall), so it got kind of humid in there, especially after a shower. They had a variety of movies and games in the common room, and I played some Mahjong and cards.

After the two days in Guilin, I went to the Longji rice terraces. I found a hostel in Pingan, one of the villages. The Longji terraces area consists of a few larger villages and a few smaller ones. Two ethnic minorities live there. It was easy enough to get to, but required a few hours and a couple bus transfers. The buses weren't expensive though. A direct bus goes from the train station to where I was staying, but you had to book that in advance and I didn't get around to it. After two hours in the normal bus from Guilin I arrived in the village (if you could call it a village) where the road to the Longji scenic area was. After turning down a few taxi's and minibusses, I got a ride with a guy who was picking someone up from the bus I had just gotten off of for 10 yuan. That is about what the bus I was waiting for would have costed, plus it saved me about half an hour of waiting. We did a brief stop to buy an admission ticket to the terraces and after about thirty minutes of driving later we arrived at Pingan. At the entrance to the village was a bunch of women, some older some young, who were offering ot carry luggage up to the village or lead you to a guesthouse for a fee. Since I had a backpack and knew where I was staying, I didn't need any help, although one of them followed me a ways up until I turned off to take a shortcut to the hostel.

The hostel was at the edge of the town in a traditional building. Nearly all the buildings were in the traditional style - all wood, three or four stories, on stilts on the side of the hill. The floors were creaky and bouncy, the walls a single board thick. It had a nice feel though and was really quiet. I arrived in the afternoon and after checking in, I went on a walk up the hills to one of the two lookout points in the village. It was an easy hike and didn't take too long. Most of the way up was through the terraces so it was a beautiful hike. The rice had already been harvested and the paddies were mostly dried mud, but it was still a beautiful place. The visibility wasn't great since it was cloudy, so you couldn't see the next mountain, but the whole village and the terraces were visible. The viewpoint offered a nice view of the terraces and village. The village was in about the center of the terraces, which stretched partway up the side of the mountain. The whole area wasn't huge, but still impressive. The mountain was fairly steep, so the terraces were pretty narrow, only a meter or two wide. Some were a little bigger and some quite a bit bigger. It was pretty late in the afternoon, so I wanted to get back before dark, since the paths weren't lighted. If there wasn't a thick layer of clouds, I would have stayed for the sunset. Back at the hostel, I got some dinner. They had a restaurant in the guesthouse which was decent enough. There were plenty of other guesthouses with their own restaurants in town, but I decided to stay close and eat there. Since there wasn't much to do after dark, I didn't stay up too late.

The next morning I woke up and it was raining. It kept up for a few hours until around noon. I was planning on doing the other viewpoint in the morning and leaving just afternoon, but the rain pushed that back. It was fine though, since I had no rush to get back to Guilin. After breakfast/lunch once the rain cleared up I walked up to the other viewpoint. There was still a very slight drizzle and most of the people were wearing plastic ponchos or raincoats but it wasn't really necessary. The other viewpoint was on the other side of town, so I got a chance to walk through the rest of the town. On the main walk up there were a variety of stalls selling the ethnic minority knick-knacks. Most of this stuff was made in factories elsewhere in China and really had no appeal. The women in the area never cut their hair, so it is among the longest in the world, and all the way up, I was asked to take "long hair photo", for money of course. It got kind of annoying after a few times. Near the top there was a small plaza filled with more touristy stuff. A few steps higher was the viewpoint, with a couple of photographers who could take your picture. The view was incredible, better than the other one. They had names, which I can't remember, and I couldn't see how they got them. Even though the rain stopped, there were still foggy clouds moving through the mountains and terraces which gave it a very cool effect. After enjoying the view for a while, I took the path towards the other viewpoint which went through more of the terraces. I didn't go all the way to the other viewpoint, but took a path down back to the village to get my bags and head for the bus. I didn't have to wait long for the bus luckily and got off back on the main road where I got off the day before. It was a short wait at the side of the road until a bus headed to Guilin appeared. I got on, paid and was on my way back. The drive back was uneventful and the view almost nonexistant, because of the clouds. Back in Guilin, I went back to the same hostel I was in before and hung out.

The next day I stayed in Guilin and didn't do hardly anything. I searched for a good bookstore and tried to book my ticket to Vietnam, both without success. I was too early to get the ticket for the date I wanted. I booked a river raft tour on the Li river to Yangshuo, the town down the river where the most beautiful scenery is. I was actually staying in Xingping, the next town north from Yangshuo. It worked out though, since the raft stopped at Xingping and everyone would take a bus to Yangshuo. I just stayed there. We left in the morning for the raft, luckily not too early. I had enough time to run to the train station, buy a ticket to Nanning, where I would get a train to Hanoi, and buy some snacks for later. The tour included a guide, a bus to the raft, the raft, and the bus to Yangshuo. It wasn't too expensive, 120 yuan, and would have been difficult, if not impossible to do myself. The bus picked us up at the hostel and we drove for an hour to where we would board the rafts. The rafts were not actually made with bamboo, but with large plastic tubes instead. There was a wood platform on the plastic with 3 benches. A motor was mounted on the back with the driver. Four people were on each boat, with space for our bags. The boats were fairly slow and relaxing, besides the loud motor on the back. The river was nice enough, but there were lots of boats - the "bamboo" rafts, and larger cruise ships. All along the river were the karst mountains that the area was famous for. These are the steep limestone mountains that seem to rise out of nowhere. The whole cruise was very beautiful. There were a few spots the guide told us to look out for (and the driver reminded us of), but half of them I couldn't tell why it was better than any of the other areas. About halfway down, we stopped on the bank. The guide said it would be only 5-10 minutes but turned into half an hour. There were plenty of tents set up with people selling water and food. I was kind of annoyed, since the stop was completely unnecessary. Once we were back underway, it wasn't much farther to Xingping. When we arrived, we got onto a golf-cart sized vehicle with seats and went off to the bus station. I was dropped off at my hostel.

Xingping is a tiny town, two main streets a few blocks long in the old part of town. There were a few apartment buildings at the far end of town, but not much more. The town was nice though. It wasn't as touristy as Yangshuo, although along the road from the river there were plenty of touristy stalls. The hostel was very nice and very comfortable. They had a cafe a block away with good food and served Italian style woodfired pizzas in the hostel. Once I was checked in, I walked around the town. It didn't take too long. I went down by the river and got some better photos, since I didn't have much of a chance when we got off the raft. I walked back up to the town and walked the length of one of the streets. It was all old buildings, some with a cafe or souvenir shop, some just people's houses. Some of the houses had open doors. It was kind of strange, many of the ones I could see into were almost bare, with just a small table where 3 or 4 people were playing cards. I suppose most people were living in the newer apartments farther in town. There was a small river that ran parallel to the main streets of the town, so I went down a side street to the river. It was very quiet and peaceful. A few people were sitting or washing something in the river. I just walked along it for a little bit and ended up back at the hostel. After dark there wasn't much to do besides hang out in the hostel. They had a huge selection of movies which they played on a projector in the lobby. I had a pizza and a few local beers and just watched movies with the other guests. The pizza was good - very thin, so I could have eaten more, but still good.

The next day, someone I had met along the way in China was doing the river raft, so I waited in town until she arrived. There wasn't much to do in town. I got breakfast at the hostel's cafe. One of the karst mountains, right across the street from the hostel, had a pavilion at the top. It was easy to climb - it had stairs up the whole way. It was a lot of stairs - over 1200 by my count, but it only took half an hour to make it to the top. The view was very nice from the pavilion. The pavilion wasn't quite at the top. There was a cell tower or some communications tower a little higher. I climbed the rocks (really easy) to just past the tower where there was a flat spot with an amazing view of the river below. Xingping is right at a bend in the river, it forms a u there. On the other side is a small fishing town. The whole scene was quite amazing. I spent some time up there just enjoying the scenery before heading down. I had the whole place to myself. On the way up I walked past a few people coming back down and I saw a Chinese couple at the pavilion, but they didn't stay long. It was very quiet and peaceful. Back at the bottom, I decided to go out into the country a little bit. I didn't feel like renting a bicycle yet, so I just walked. I walked for about an hour outside of town. I walked past a lot of pomelo and orange orchards, and a few small rice paddies and vegetable fields. There were a few clusters of houses along the way. It was nice, but not especially interesting. The countryside around Yangshuo I heard was better. When I got back to the hostel, I waited around until my friend arrived. She showed up a hour or so later with another girl she met on the raft. The two of them were staying the night there, so I decided to stay another night too. I liked the quiet atmosphere of the town. It was very relaxing. After they got settled, they asked about what there was to do, and we decided to go up the same mountain I had done in the morning. I had nothing better to do, so I went with them. The hike was just as easy, and just as beautiful. We considered staying until sunset, but since it was overcast and none of us had a light, we decided that we should get back before dark. Some of the steps did not seem safe in the dark. When we got back down, we went to the cafe for dinner. It was good, not the best I've had, but perfectly fine. We walked through town a little bit, and then went back to the hostel to just hang out the rest of the evening. We were getting hungry again, so we ordered a couple of pizzas and some beers and just watched movies.

The next day we got breakfast at the cafe and just walked around town. I bought a small ink painting from a guy on the street for 10 yuan and we stopped for some snacks at the supermarket. They were staying another night, but I was checking out. I was in no rush, so we hung out at the hostel and tried to coordinate the next couple of days before I got on the bus to Yangshuo. The bus was cheap and took about 45 minutes. I booked a room at 11 hostel, on an alley behind the main tourist street. Yangshuo is a town completely consumed by tourism. The main street, West street, is almost nothing but tourist shops (way overpriced, impossible to get a fair price one just about anything) and restaurants and bars. I walked around and checked it out. The nice thing is that you could find just about anything there, but there was no way you could get them to come down to a reasonable price. All of the things I asked about were at least twice what they asked for in other cities and they wouldn't come down hardly at all. I got dinner at a cheap place with claypot rice bowls. It was pretty good, but a bit spicy. The hostel was nice, very close to the main street, but still quiet. It was much closer to what I thought a youth hostel should be like. It was run by 3 young friends, there was no bar or restaurant and the lobby was cozy. They had another huge selection of movies, making it impossible to find anything to watch. There was a rooftop viewpoint which was great at night. The mountains all around town were light up at night which made for a beautiful scene. The adjacent building had a bar, but it wasn't too loud. I was tired so I didn't do too much at night besides watch a movie and read.

The next day I woke up feeling sick. I must have eaten or drank something bad the previous day. Luckily I was very near to the bathroom. Of course this meant that I didn't get much sleep. I wasn't feeling brave enough to get anything to eat, but by noon I was feeling much better. My friends from Xingping arrived around noon. One of them was leaving later that afternoon, the other staying. My hostel didn't have any more beds, but the place next door did. We rented some bicycles and went out into the countryside. First we went to a place called Moon Hill, one of the mountains with a huge hole in it. It took about an hour to get to. The traffic in Yangshuo was still a bit crazy, even though it was a small town. It was manageable though, even surprising how easy it was to navigate. The ride to Moon Hill was along a main road, so it was very easy, and still very beautiful. I don't think its possible to go anywhere around there and not be somewhere beautiful. Luckily I was still feeling fine, even though all I'd had was some orange juice and water. A bit hungry though. At Moon Hill, the one girl who was leaving turned around and left the two of us to continue on our own. We went a bit farther and tried to find a route through the country that was recommended by the hostel. We found a road into some farming areas, but it didn't lead where we hoped. It was still nice though - by some farming houses, through some orchards and by some fields. We turned around and went back towards Guilin. We passed Moon Hill again and went towards another route. At the bridge, we turned and went along the river. This was along another paved road and once we got past the boring looking resort, we were in between the mountains. It was quite beauitful. A little farther along we were back between the mountains and river. Along the river there were farms and orchards. Several trucks passed us loaded with the bamboo rafts (these ones actual bamboo). A while later we arrived at a river crossing. Here we could get a ride down the river, but we got someone to take us across with our bikes. On the other side it got a lot quieter. We saw a few other bikers (mostly tourists), and no more motorcycles or trucks for a while. The view kept getting better. There were rice paddies with the golden rice ready for harvest and trees with fruit. Beyond the river and behind us the mountains rose up abruptly. There were some people working in the fields, not many though. A few water buffalo were being led by the locals and some kids were playing in the road. We cycled further until we came to another bridge, which we crossed and started to head back to Yangshuo. We had been gone for a few hours at this point, and we were pretty hungry. We didn't see much though to eat. I wanted to find some farmers and buy some fruit, but I didn't see any unfortunately. The road back was a bit more crowded - more bicycles, and some motorbikes. Eventually we made it back to the town. I stopped at a fruit stand and bought some rambutans, which were ok, but not quite ripe yet so they were kind of difficult to eat. We made it back to the hostel around 4 and we were hungry. I had read about a bookstore in town, so I wanted to check that out. With some directions from the hostel, I found it. It was pretty small, actually part of a cafe. The books were expensive, but they did do a 2 for 1 swap, and I had plenty of books to get rid of. I picked out a few and had the guy set them aside so I could come back later and swap. We went then to eat. We found a cheap place and got some dumplings and fried rice. Even after not eating all day, we couldn't even finish the two dishes we ordered. They were good though. After walking a little through town, we went back to the hostel. I grabbed the books and went over to do the swap. We were tired from the cycling, so we planned on just hanging out in the common room. My friend wasn't feeling too well though, so she went to bed early and I was really tired as well, so I went up to my room and read and talked to some of my roommates for a while. I didn't stay up especially late though, since I had to leave the next morning.

My train from Guilin to Nanning was at just after 1, but I had to get a bus (90 min) from Yangshuo to Guilin, so I left at 11:00. I got breakfast by myself since my friend was still ill - an omelette at a cafe/bar that was cheap and big. I said farewell to my friend and got on the bus. I had a little time to kill in Guilin, but not enough to do anything, so I waited at the train station until my train. It was kind of weird - the waiting room was almost completely empty. When I got on the train, I though I would have almost the entire car to myself, but after a few minutes Chinese came out of nowhere and filled it. I still don't know where they came from - the waiting room was empty and I didnt see anyone else going for the train. The seat was comfortable enough, but it would have been nice to be able to lean back. The train only made 3 stops, but somehow managed to be almost an hour and a half late to Nanning.

In Nanning, I walked to the ticket office and bought my ticket to Vietnam for the next evening. It was very easy, I bought a soft sleeper bed. I then walked to my hostel, a nice quiet place about 15 minutes away from the station. Nanning is a dull city, although when I was out for dinner (I had Mcdonalds because I wanted something familiar so I wouldn't upset my stomach any more), I came across a very lively night market. I walked through there just for something to do. I considered buying a fake ipod, but didn't since I wasn't sure if they would even work, despite the one the guys had out as a sample. Back at the hostel, some people were watching a movie, so I joined them since there was nothing better to do. In the morning I was in no rush to get up, but eventually I went out for lunch and got some fried chicken at a local fast food place that was ok. Nothing special. I went into the department store nearby just because I had nothing else to do but kill time and bought some fruit at the supermarket there. At the hostel were two Irish girls who were on the same train as me that evening, so we started talking. We went out a few hours later to get some more snacks at the local walmart. It wasn't much different than the other supermarkets I had been to in China, maybe a little bigger, but thats all. We only stuck to the food floor. We picked up some mcdonalds on the way back. When we got back at the hostel, it was about time to leave, so we packed up the food as best we could and went to the station. There was a big line of people waiting to get on, but only a few were actually going to Vietnam. The sleeper compartments were very quiet. At the Chinese border point a couple hours later, we handed over our passports to the officials and just had to wait while they did their thing. We had to get off with our bags for some reason and send them through the x-ray machine. There were no problems, but it took a while. At some point they had disconnected the tree sleeper cars from the rest of the train and only the three cars continued onto Vietnam. Once we left the Chinese border point, it was about an hour to the Vietnamese. At that point we got out and handed over our passports again while they did their thing. Again no problems, just waiting. After another hour we were back in the train and it was around 12:30. We were finally able to get some sleep, but not much since we arrived at 5:00 am in Hanoi. For whatever reason, the train doesn't go to the main station, but some other station. The station we got off at was tiny, with nothing around it but a neighborhood which was all closed up since it was 5am. There were a few taxis asking way too much so we decided to walk and maybe find one on the street. One guy kept following us, not giving up and not offering much better deals. He kept up for at least a km before giving up. We ended up walking all the way to our hostel. It was quiet and before dawn. It was actually a nice walk, if we didn't have all our bags. The bridge across the river was really interesting, especially with the predawn mist, but really long. It took forever to cross. There were a lot of people out for morning exercises or jogs. We eventually made it to our hostels after an hour or more of walking. I had to wait a while to check in, so I just walked around, got some cash and killed time in the lobby. The place is nice enough, kind of big spread across a few buildings. I really like the feel of Hanoi though. It has a colonial feel still, lots of nice old buildings and good food. So far I've been eating lots of banh my's, the sandwiches in the crispy mini baguttes with whatever they have. I can't always tell whats going in, but it ends up being delicious, and cheap, less than 20000 dong for one (20000 is about a dollar).

Now that I'm all caught up, I'll leave the rest of Hanoi for a later post.

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