I hasten to add, this was as an outpatient! Dunno if it was something I ate on the boat over or soon after I arrived, anyway felt a bit 'wrong' pretty much from day one. 'Wrong' got progressively worse - with all the symptoms of amoebic dysentery, although I got myself to Guilin in the meantime. Checked myself in to a really good hostel, who recommended Hospital 181, the main city hospital.
No one really spoke English, so with the help of a few phrases from my guide book, some pictures and gestures (thank god the teaching experience amounted to something) managed to get my point across.
Anyway, they did some tests and the doctor wrote me a prescription for medicine to be administered intraveneously. After I'd paid, I was sent to collect it from the pharmacy - they handed over the medicines plus everything needed for my drip over in two plastic bags, which I had to take back to the doctor. A nurse plugged me in, and in the end it took until late evening to get it all inside me - at which point there were no taxis to be found, so a hospital orderly drove me back to my hostel in the hospital minibus.
Went back next day for another round, and 24 hours later miraculously am pretty much fully recovered. All in all - the hospital toilets were the worse I've seen in China so far, but everywhere else seemed clean enough, and more importantly the needles and everything they stuck in me came from sterile packs. Have no idea what they put in me other than the saline, but if only all treatment was this effective!
