Guilin and Yangshou
We woke up on the train on Saturday morning to a completely different scene: banana trees silhouetted against a red sunrise. Lots of water buffalo and rice fields. Arriving in Guilin at about lunchtime we booked into our hostel and went exploring. The change in temperature from Kunming was quite dramatic and we sweltered in the heat as we explored the town. We had become used to life at altitude with its more moderate temperatures and lack of humidity. Guilin itself doesn’t have a huge amount to do but is quite a pleasant place, especially at night when everywhere is lit up. There is a hotel (The Waterfall Hotel) down which water cascades from the top floor to the bottom and a lake with pagodas and some nice gardens. The town does however make a good base for exploring the area so yesterday (Sunday) we took a tour to Longshen. This is an area where there are lots of terraced rice fields which were created hundreds of years ago by one of China ethnic minority groups called the Yao. They have turned the Yao people into a bit of a tourist circus. We stopped at a village where the women don’t cut their hair so it is up to 2 metres long. They all dress up in their costumes which are quite attractive and put on a song and dance routine for the tourists. I must admit I have mixed feelings about this sort of thing. It certainly brings in much needed money to the village as evidenced by the poverty of neighbouring villages which are not part of the tourist jamboree. They have been able to build new houses, for example. But in other ways it seems a bit demeaning for people to have to make a pantomime of their culture for the punters. However, the main reason for going was to see the terraced fields so after lunch we walked up the hill to see what we could see. Which on account of the rather Scottish hill weather was not very much. The cloud was down and it was raining so we wandered about in the mist for a while. It did clear and allow to see some terraces and take some photos but it was rather disappointing. Still, I bought some postcards so we know what it should have looked like. The other thing we wanted do from Guilin was take a boat trip down the Li River to Yangshuo. This is supposed to be one of the best things to do in China but we were rather concerned that it would be a rerun of the rice felds trip and we wouldn’t be able to see much. So we decided to wait until this morning to see what the weather was like. As predicted it was still raining! But we made a snap decision to do it anyway, sprinted round to the tour agency, booked the tickets, packed our bags and were on the bus on the way to the wharf before we could have second thoughts. As it happened it did rain most of the day – it is still raining – but the scenery was spectacular anyway. You go past wierd limestone pinnacles covered in the trees and there was mist swirling about which made it all very atmospheric. In fact if it had been blazing sunshine it wouldn’t have been anywhere near so dramatic. Included in the price was a rather good lunch: we shared a table with some Spanish people and a Dutch couple. Foreign tourists pay more for the trip than Chinese people but we get a better lunch! Also (and I know this sounds really bad) we don’t have to sit with Chinese people. In our experience the concept of quiet enjoyment of scenery is entirely lost on the Chinese and all the men chain smoke, making enclosed places very uncomfortable. Amazingly, on the Chinese deck of the boat they produced playing cards and newspapers and didn’t look out of the windows much. Quite odd as it was an expensive boat trip. On the bus trip yesterday there was a man sitting behind me who used his mobile phone as if it was a loudhailer all the way to Longshen, which took about two and half hours!
So we reached Yangshuo after about 4-5 hours and found a nice hostel near the river. We’ve had a wander about and booked a short trip this evening to watch people fishing with cormorants. We hope to hire some bikes tomorrow and explore the area a bit – if it is not too wet. This is also the climbing capital of China but the season does not start for month or so (when it may have stopped raining!). And there are some caves that you go in as well. So that should keep us occupied for a day or three. We then intend to go by overnight bus to Shenzhen where you can cross the border into Hongkong.
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