World China Guangxi Guilin

Cam & Tash go global!!

Guilin, China Jul 20, 2008

Our first taste of Chinese airlines wasn’t great, on our flight to Guangzhou there was somebody smoking on the plane (gross!!!) and we could see lightning out the window (scary!!!), the plane was pretty old school too. Descending into Guangzhou though was really cool, the city lights just seemed to go on forever. The flight the next morning to Guilin was bumpy as hell so we were very glad to touch down. And due to strict regulations because of the Olympics you are not allowed to carry ANY liquids on the flight…so we’ve lost half our toiletries now there’s no point buying more til we’re out of the country, oh well.

Anywho, outside of the airport is a much better story! Guilin is a very beautiful city, population of about 600,000 so relatively small for China and hence there’s no pollution here. The landscape is full of these limestone hills which jut up out of nowhere - not like the rolling hills of NZ. We thought we’d have other people on our tour but it’s just the two of us with a private English-speaking guide and a driver with a super comfy air-conditioned van….sweeet!

The first thing we did was have a traditional Chinese lunch to taste the local delicacies: pepper beef and a fish from the river which only has one bone running down the middle so easy eating. We weren’t quite sure what to expect, especially when we had to pick out our own fish from tanks on the street and watch the waitress slap it against the pavement to kill it! And it came out on the plate head, tail and all!! To our surprise it was delicious, and we might be hard pressed to find something equally as good on the rest of our tour. We ate the beef dish three days running.

That afternoon we went to the Reed Flute cave which is full of stalactites, they’ve put in coloured lighting which makes all sorts of patterns and formations stand out. We got some pretty sweet photos there. We then visited the South China Sea Pearl Museum where I made the most expensive jewellery purchase of my entire life - here’s hoping it’s not a fake!

The next day we went on a 3.5hr boat ride down the very picturesque Lijiang River. Lunch was provided which we shared with an older couple from Aus and a few med students from London - now there’s something we’ve noticed; the Chinese always put the whities together, even on the plane: the locals all together and the foreigners all together (and usually up the back!). At the end of the trip was a little village called Yangzhou, seemed to us it was just a tacky tourist shopping venture. Just out of the village though is Moon Hill, basically one of the limestone mountains with a big hole in it, which, depending on the angle you view it from, represents the various stages of the moon’s cycle. Cam wanted to climb it but apparently the local women will follow you all the way up trying to sell stuff and then all the way back down again - we’re told they’ll basically fight over you with each other - so that coupled with the soaring afternoon temperatures was a no for us. Instead we took the lazy way out and visited another hill called Cable Mountain, an 800m cable car ride to the top to see views over the city and surrounding area. About two thirds the way up the mountain was a luge ride (the Chinese call it a slide car) which you could take down to the bottom - it wasn’t a concrete track though but more like a metal bob sled track. Wicked!

After that we went to Fubo Hill, another limestone hill but in the middle of the city. We did climb to the top of this one, amused by the English translations on caution signs along the way. From the top we could see people doing a flying fox across the river, our eyes lit up!! We got our guide to take us there and while it wasn’t a huge adrenalin rush it was still awesome for $6NZD. Not so awesome though was the dish we chose for dinner that night….what we thought to be just a kind of chicken stirfry turned out to be pretty much just the skin, bone and feet - we’d like to know what the hell they do with the boobs over here!

Our last day in Guilin we visited yet another limestone mountain called Elephant Trunk Hill (doesn’t take much imagination to guess why), this was followed by lunch and back to the airport to catch a flight to Xi’an - with a much better airline!!!