China – Guilin, Yangshou to Hong Kong and back
When we arrived in Guilin at 6am we didn’t have a hotel booking which is really no different than other times. So we got the taxi driver to take us to the nicest place listed in Lonely Planet as they usually let you use their phone and/or store your things there as you look around town. We didn’t use our phone since we didn’t have any more minutes on it and couldn’t figure out how to use the top up cards – all voice prompts are in Chinese! AHhhhh Later, Andre’s going to post the GPRS settings and other useful hints for Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and CHina phone options.
Andre found this great brand new place right on the main street of Guilin called The Grand Hotel. Although, in his drunken state and without his wonderful translator (me) he couldn’t figure out if they had a room or not! So I walked back and asked if they had a room and they did…….art-deco style designed by a Canadian, we later found out, this place was clean and comfy for 250yuan/night.
As an aside, I want to clarify the whole translator thing. I can ask questions up the ying-yang, but I absolutely CANNOT figure out what is being said back to me unless it is the simplest of baby-talk. I think though, once I say anything in Chinese, it’s assumed that I know ALL as they have even shown me hand written Chinese characters and expected me to understand. It’s the craziest thing….although maybe we’ve helped this sort of thing along. For instance, when we want a bottom bunk on the train, we draw the “down” symbol we also say we do not want the “up” bunk by saying “wo boo yao “insert up symbol here”. Maybe they think we’re smarter than we are?? oh well……
Guilin is beautiful and we have spent a couple of days exploring the surrounding sites walking to the Elephant Rock, up a temple ontop of a hill with amazing views of Guilin and the surrounding karsts that make up the entire Guilin horizon…….
While sitting to enjoy these sites, we have been asked many, many times to be in photos with other people!! Chinese people send one person in their little group to ask if its ok to take their photo with me and Andre! At first we think that they want us to take their photo, but when I reach for the camera, they put their arm around me, like we’re dear old friends! It’s hilarious!! These same things happened to us when we were in Dali as well……..
We soon realized that we needed to get going onto Yangshou, so we booked our train tickets from Guilin to Guangzhou before we left since Yanshou is not on the train line. We wanted to take a boat ride to Yangshou, but the weather was not very good and we thought that we could just take a boat back from Yangshou to Guilin – this turns out a “no” as the boat takes 8 hours to make the journey back up the river! ewwww!
Yangshou was so wonderful! The same wonderful scenery as Guilin but up close! We again hadn’t booked anything for accomodation, but were approached by many people to look at their rooms. After seeing 5 different places, we stayed at Sihai hotel at 130 RMB/night (about $20) for their largest, air-conditioned room. We dropped our things off and went walking. The weather was great and we made our way down to the riverside to see water buffalos taking a cooldown in the water – how awesome! We found a small market and a lovely little country road off the main drag that we would love to explore by bike. The town has plenty of places to rent bikes from for 10 RMB/day, not bad at all. Turned out the next day and the day after that were raining and raining and raining and so we never got to explore that road – I guess you have to leave something for next time though!
We did have a great little time in the town the one rainy evening when we heard the uncanny sound of Lincoln Park booming from inside – where we spent the rest of the night. The next rainy day we spent in an internet cafe planning for our arrival in Hong Kong – of course, we hadn’t booked anything in HongKong either……..
We arrived in Guangzhou and immediately bought a ticket from here to Kowloon, Hong Kong. We had to wait for 4 hours, since all the trains were booked because of a trade fair they were having in the city the previous day. We arrived in Kowloon, the Hong Kong mainland around 4 pm and actually used the booking office at the station to find a place……..and for 1400 RMB later – yes, that’s about $200 CAN we had a place to stay at the New San Diego Hotel……..we were completely bummed. The ride there was in a broken down and re-wired mini-van of sorts that we actually ended up pre-paying $8 for!!! AND he dropped us off at the wrong place which Andre quickly rectified by calling the booking office at the airport. The room was absolutely beautiful but SO expensive. We quickly dropped our things off and went looking for a new, much cheaper place to stay!
Our walk took us to other small, kinda dumpy hotels, who were asking for about $180/night!! Are these people crazy!!!?? Anyhow, after about 3 hours of walking we eventually made our way to the part of Hong Kong we were trying to avoid, Chungking Mansions! We heard that these are definitely the backpacker ghettos to stay in…….and the place looks like a dump! Inside and Out!!!! We by-passed it though, and made our way next door to the Mirador Mansions, also a dump, but a dump with 2 extra elevators that make getting the overpopulated population into the building a little easier! There’s even a note at the elevator entranceway that says that there is a definite overcrowding in this building and that there will be serious injuries and/or deaths if there is ever a fire!!! And we were considering staying where???? Even with that we made our way to the top 16th floor and made our way slowly down, looking at each guesthouse we could find along the way.
There were rooms without windows and beds 5feet long. Bathrooms with big black dark holes to nowhere lurking behind the toilet bowl and “this was the best you’re going to get in here!!” yelled behind us as we said “no thank you”, expecially for $45 CAD!!. So Hong Kong may be a wonderful place to get your “Western” fix, but you pay dearly for it. We eventually ended up in the Kowloon Gueshouse in Mirador mansions on the 13th floor. He took us to the absolutely best room he had -2 double beds and a bathroom with a tub so no wet feet in the middle of the night. The room has laminate floors complete with a beautiful lining of rat poison along the walls! nice! At 550 HK dollars (about $80 CAD) per night, this was the best we saw at the best price, so we took it for 2 nights, knowing that we would prompty be leaving! Oh, but we HAD a window!!!!! cool!
Hong Kong was pretty great, with light shows at night and a wonderful shopping district on Hong Kong island that we bought our new camera at. We are now proud owners of the S21S Canon Powershot!! Very exciting! But we ate at Mc Donalds everyday we were in Hong Kong, with one night “out” eating at the Spaghetti house where they had 2 for 1 beer and 50% off food during their happy hour…..pretty sad stuff we know. We were approached MANY times for “copy watch” but said no thanks. The only thing we bought in HK was a camera and it’s bag and many burgers at McD’s……….unless you have an endless budget, don’t come to Hong Kong, save the money on the flight here and go shopping at home! There’s nothing special about what they have on sale – we came only to make the 2nd part of our double entry visa valid!
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