Just the glimpses from the airport shuttle bus were amazing. It was about 8pm but I could still see the distinct shapes of these huge pinnacles lurking in the darkness and I’m not talking Cervantes pinnacles I am talking mountain size pinnacles. Guilin is known for its karst topography and there is plenty of it. We have treated ourselves to the deluxe room at the guesthouse (120 Yuan or $18 includes breakfast) but we just dumped our bags and went in search of some food, as we are used to China’s early to bed policy we thought we might not be able to get much but only 50 metres from our guest house we were in a lively pedestrian mall. Guilin is only small but it’s jammed with Chinese tourists. Plenty of English everywhere and we consumed a very nice club sandwich – sandwiches are hard to come by up north. The next morning we ventured down to the Li River and strolled along its banks. Bought our admission tickets to Elephant Trunk Hill Park and spent most of the morning admiring the views and enjoying the peace. Of course for lunch we had to try the local specialty ‘Beer Fish’ which was a pot of simmering soup with vegetables and a whole fish, not sure where the beer was, it tasted pretty good but for me the dumplings were tastier. The fish was very fresh we saw a guy heading to the kitchen with some fish still slapping at the sides of his bucket. We booked our onward tickets and had to choose from three options to get to Yangshuo (1) 1.5 hour bus 20 Yuan (2) Bus + Bamboo raft on the prettiest part of the Li River + Bus 120 Yuan or (3) Tourist boat all the way 420 Yuan, we looked at each other and I said option 2 and Nick said option 3, the reason Nick was reluctant for option 2 is that we had decided to take our big bags with us and this might be a problem for a bamboo raft so after being reassured it was no problem we booked the bus-raft-bus tour. The pickup was a minivan and the two bags didn’t seem like much of problem but once they had jammed all the seats full of people plus 3 backpacks it was bordering on claustrophobic. The bamboo raft turned out to be a PVC raft, a bit disappointed but probably a safer upgrade. The scenery was fantastic and it was very relaxing until we got pulled over by the water police (or we think we did) because we had to land and then after a considerable time passed during which we were badged to buy little wooden ducks for 10 Yuan, another raft pulled up and Nick and I and another couple were moved on to the new raft before we all set off again. The next time we pulled up there was a steep concrete staircase, with no one to tell us otherwise we (as in Nick) hauled our luggage up the stairs only to find it was a late lunch stop, so we hauled the luggage back down then we got gestured into boarding back onto our original raft. More fabulous scenery then it was time to board an electric cart for 12, so as one of our cases was in the front the other took up a seat so I had to squash myself into Nicks lap, I am sure he regretted every Snickers Bar and Ice cream he had bought me. Now that ride was seriously bumpy and about 40 minutes later in Xingping we uncoiled and this time boarded a big bus headed for Yangshuo, more fabulous scenery. The big bus dumped us in the middle of town and we immediately started looking for a taxi, one of the 3 wheeler buggies approached us and offered to takes us for 50 Yuan, I said ‘too expensive’ in my best Mandarin and he came down to 40, actually I wanted a proper taxi so I said 30 and he excepted - oops. The road was very muddy and a lot of pot holes so it was a painfully slow trip and I was worrying we would have jump into the mud to push him through but amazingly we eventually arrived at this oasis. So now we are settling into The Giggling Tree, a Dutch run guest house located 5km outside of Yangshuo. With its English menu and all other guests being westerners this is like a holiday from China.
