Guilin, China

Our true Asian adventure has begun!  We spent the weekend in Guilin, a short plane ride from Hong Kong.  Guilin is one of the "must see" places in China, noted for its scenery and its nearby minority (non-Han) village (Long Ji).  The famous limestone hills grace the 20 yuan bill, along with the Chairman (his face is on every piece of currency).

We don't normally use a travel agent to book land arrangements, however, we felt more at ease letting an expert plan our arrangements for our first foray into the Mainland.

Our English-speaking guide, Annie, met us at the airport, and then introduced our driver by saying "he is a good driver.  He has his certificate and has been driving for three years."  Driving in off-the-beaten-path China is quite the experience!  There is a lot of road construction due to the increased number of cars.  There are no safety requirements!  Scooters are very popular means of transport - we saw families of three (only one child per family in China) on scooters, with the fathers driving and the mothers bouncing the babies behind the driver!  Very few helmets, and most helmets were construction site hard-hats.  There is an occasional traffic light, but cars just continue to go every which way through intersections.  There are men walking water buffaloes along the main roads.  After a while, you realize that there's a certain rhythm to the traffic flow - no-one is speeding, and everyone merges where possible.  Frightening until you get used to it.

Our guide suggested that we take the night boat tour around Guilin - the two rivers and five lakes have recently been joined, and the government offers a cruise to show off the city.  We were unprepared for the "theme park" atmosphere - it was so phoney!  Fake pagodas, fake calligraphy under the bridges, dancers and musicians in little pavilions along the shore, staged cormorant fishermen, and even a section to show off China's international relations including a fake Arc de Triomphe and a Golden Gate Bridge!  There was a musician on board playing an erhu.  He began with Chinese music, then started playing international folk-music.  We laughed out loud when he played Kyle's all-time favourite:  hokey-pokey!  The sad part was how proud our guide was of this attraction.  She told us how much it all cost, and how long it took to build.

The next morning, we took the Li River ferryboat cruise.  There's been a severe drought in Guilin this year, and the water level was very low.  (Julie, Eric and Andrew - remember when we had to push the canoes along the Rouge River?  We were afraid we would have to do the same on the Li).  We passed hundreds (thousands?) of hills.  Unfortunately, the day was very hazy, so most of the hills looked like outlines and shadows.  The more interesting part of the cruise was the life on and off the river.  Cormorant fishermen, water taxis, pedlars selling fruit from their five-log rafts, and ramshackle houseboats.

The cruise finished in a small city called Yangshuo.  After checking into our hotel, we rented bicycles and set out with Annie to visit the Big Banyan Tree and Moon Hill.  I got a panic attack after five minutes of cycling through the heavy traffic with horns blaring away.  Jeff looked like he was ready to kill me, but Annie patiently told me to go in between her and Jeff and just continue along.  She reassured me that the traffic would thin out once we got out of downtown.  (All I could think of was Eva Madras' tales of bicycling in Beijing).  I finally relaxed once we passed the last roundabout and got on the open road.  The famous banyan tree is 1400 years old.  It was planted the year the town began!  The government has turned the tree into a theme park (entry fees), with a ubiquitous flea market, small lake, and punting rafts for hire (these looked like fun, but we didn't have time to  try one).  

A little further down the road (there is only one road...) we got to Moon Hill - a limestone hill with a round hole in it.  Depending on your perspective, the hill immediately behind it blocks more or less of the hole to give an effect of the moon waxing or waning.  The bicycle ride back to Yangshuo was uneventful, except for the stares from all the locals.  We noticed only four other Westerners on bicycles during our two-hour ride.

We had a fun evening in Yangshuo (we managed to ditch our guide and go off on our own).  Dinner at an outdoor cafe felt like a summer evening on Prince Arthur (Montreal).  Jeff was sitting next to a fish tank.  We suddenly heard a "splat" and there was poor Wanda lying wriggling on the ground!  Jeff picked up the fish net, scooped Wanda up, and returned her to her tank.  The other diners applauded!  

The shopping street was crowded with people (Saturday night), and we wandered along seeking bargains.  (The man is selling musical instruments and the lady is making silk).  We found a CD/DVD store and bought lots of music and new movies.  The DVDs cost the equivalent of $1.50 CDN!

On Sunday, we traveled back to Guilin and visited several interesting sites:  Elephant Trunk Hill, Fubo Hill, Reed Flute Cave (excellent stalagmites and stalactites) and the Tea Science and Research Institute.  The tea plantation was Jeff's highlight of the weekend.

The tea-leaf picker is on her cell phone!  The docent at the tea estate explained the cultivation process and told us about the research the institute is conducting.  She performed a traditional tea ceremony for us, and then we spent some time in the gift shop.  (The only down side was the demise of our camera.  The shutter stopped working just as we entered the tea ceremony room.  The rest of the photos in today's blog are from Jeff's BlackBerry.)

Later that afternoon, we drove up through the high hills to Long Ji, a minority Zhuang village noted for its terraced rice fields.  Jeff says that the hills reminded him of loaves of bread.  Cars are not allowed in the village, which is perched on very steep slopes.  In the parking lot,  Annie arranged to have our 20 kilo suitcase carried up the old stone steps by a local WOMAN.

The climb to the hotel/lodge was about 1 kilometre!  The porter arrived there before us, without any shortness of breath.  We heard/saw fireworks that night from our balcony.  It was the lantern festival  which signifies the end of Chinese New Year.  On Monday morning, we awoke at 5:45 and trekked even further up the mountain to watch the sunrise, however the morning was cloudy, so we could only imagine the beautiful colours of a sunrise over the rice fields.  After breakfast, we walked through the village and climbed up the terraces.  We even found a semi-hidden cemetery!  When we stopped for coffee, we befriended a family from France (good chance to practice speaking French).  We sang Alouette to the 2 1/2 year old girl!  

Some observations:

Sign of the week:  Jeff recently read an article about blind people being trained as masseurs.  We happened to pass one of these "spas" on our first night in Guilin.  One room - many cots - lined up inches from each other.

We did not see any libraries, but then again we don't read Chinese!  I told Annie that I was a librarian and worked in a college library.  Her response was a total blank.  

The only bookstore we saw was in the Guilin airport.  No Ian Rankin, Michael Connelly, or Alexander McCall Smith translations.  As far as I could tell, any translated book spewed the Communist philosophy.

All of the houses we passed were three story, flat, and unadorned.  Whenever we saw an impressive gated entrance, we realized that it led to a government building.

We passed a new hospital:  No. 181 Military Hospital of the P.L.A.  Our guide informed us that it was for military personnel, and too expensive for common people.  Some people are more equal than others.

Mainland Chinese are allowed to visit 38 countries (provided they can afford to).  Our guide thought that this was very generous.

The meals that were included in our trip (breakfasts, lunches and two dinners) were bland and spice-less (good for my father!).  We questioned our guide about this, since the meals we had on our own were deliciously flavoured.  Annie replied that they are told to order meals like this because Westerners do not like spicy food.