Beijing to Guilin
Did my week in Beijing. Overall good but 20 degrees warmer would have been nice or at least less of the chill factor. The sights good and the old parts, the hutongs a lot more enjoyable than the newer concrete block covered areas and were evidently where the budget hotels are to be found.
Did most of the main sights including the Forbidden City twice which was worth it as so much to see and even had Peking Duck – which didn’t think any big deal. Even the train station less intimidating on a later visit so all in all no complaints but still more than happy to leave my cold weather clothes at the station and board the train to Guilin so now some poor beggar blessed with a Brighton and Hove Albion football scarf, I hope he treasures it.
The trip to Guilin 27 hours and we seemed to stop at every station on the way which was tedious but the sleeper carriages painless, for some reason still prefer buses as miss not being able to get out every so often even if having toilets nice which for some reason Chinese buses don’t bother with.
In the last 10 years have mese 3 previous attempts to get here so fourth time lucky. Probably changed a lot in that time as well. Staying in Yanshou, which I was expecting to be much smaller than it is, a fair size town which plenty of construction going on. But a nice enough place, well established for tourism and plenty of tourists. Only downside they still don’t renew visas here, the PSB this morning saying its too a small a place which seemed hard to believe but nothing I can do about it so will have to trudge back to Guilin but can’t enter Vietnam until 19th Dec so have to time things right.
This area famed for its karst scenery and regarded as some of China’s finest scenery. With lovely blue skies and the first warm weather for a while, so far so good even if quite hazy for photos. Today climbed Moon Hill, some great views especially at the top. Will be here for a few days as plenty of chances to get out and about.
Tags: Travel
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