It honestly surprised me how quickly the time to leave Chengdu rolled around. Although I knew I'd miss it eventually, at the time I actually got into Grace's car and headed to the airport, I was so excited about traveling and going back to England that I barely looked back out the window when we drove away. Cate and I had just enough time at the airport to get food at a restaurant with a delightfully Chinglish-y selection of signs admonishing patrons to stay mindful of their travel plans as they ate before we strolled along to our gate and took a short flight to Guilin.
Guilin is located in Guangxi province, a part of southern China well-known for its natural beauty, especially the "karsts" or irregular limestone formations that dot the landscape there. Because we ended up getting to our hostel rather late, we fell into bed and decided to begin our explorations the next day, which started with a brief climb up Fubo Hill, a karst located in the city that offers unparalleled views of the surroundings.
After descending from Fubo, we strolled around the various lakes and rivers that set Guilin apart from most Chinese cities, stopping for lunch and other assorted snacks along the way. It was a relaxing day, as we'd intended, and when it got too hot and sunny in the afternoon, we sat and read in a cafe until it was time for dinner. The name of the game was relaxation, after all!
We'd signed up for a boat trip down the Lijiang River to see more karsts the next day, and it left late enough that we could have a big Western breakfast before it was time to go. I practically inhaled the coffee, which was a drink mostly absent from my life in Chengdu, and we both enjoyed staring out the window at the beautiful scenery as we made our way to the dock where we would cast off and spend a few hours on the river.
As things often happen in China, the tourist-y experience was a strange mix of the historical and the jarringly modern. Traditionally, the boats that were punted along the river were rafts made of long tubes of bamboo, but now that they're outfitted with outboard motors, they're too heavy and must be constructed of PVC pipe instead. For some reason, I found this fact hilarious, but soon calmed down and enjoyed the two hour float along the river. In a somewhat strange turn of events, we even got to see a portion of the karsts that are immortalized on the back of the 20RMB bill...this was hugely exciting to the domestic tourists, but Cate and I honestly found the hullabaloo surrounding pictures there a bit much.
We spent the afternoon riding rented bikes in the outskirts of Yangshuo, another beautiful city along the river, and we were absolutely exhausted by the time we made it back to Guilin. We went to a cheap restaurant around the corner to eat as much food as we possibly could before falling asleep at the table, and then slept a long night in our surprisingly nice hostel.
The next morning we saw two attractions: the Seven Star Park, which was an over-developed piece of land just outside the city that was notable mostly for its large population of monkeys, which we got up close and personal with on one of the less-traversed trails:
And Reed Flute Cave, a huge limestone cavern with beautifully intricate rock formations that are inexplicably lit up with a variety of neon-colored lights. I found it so strange that this beautiful natural feature had been lit up like a psychedelic pop art experiment, but it definitely made for some pretty pictures:
We'd planned a few days out in a more rural area called Longsheng, so we packed and rearranged our bags to ease the next morning's journey. You see, getting out to Longsheng is no walk in the park: first, one must take a two and a half hour bus ride. Then, one must take a half hour hike to bypass the portion of the road blocked by a landslide several months ago, THEN get on another hour-long bus, and then (if one selects a less expensive hostel) hike 45 minutes seemingly straight up the side of a mountain with all of one's bags.
So Cate and I set off on this epic journey at 8 am, and finally arrived, sweaty, tired, and peeved, at around 2. That said, the journey was pretty worthwhile once we saw the beautiful views from our hotel room. The area has been named a UNESCO world heritage site because of the beautiful terraced rice paddies, and our hostel had a huge front porch that was perfect for an afternoon of sitting and reading, which is exactly what we did, pausing at regular intervals to enjoy the sweeping views.
We woke up late the next morning and hiked still farther up the mountains, to an amazing lookout where we spent a long time, enjoying the views and haggling with an old man selling art to buy a souvenir. Then we wound back down to the village, where we ate eggplant that we'd seen the cook clamber down into her garden to pick and had another lazy and scenic afternoon.
We retraced our many steps back to Guilin the next morning, and took another long stroll around the other part of the city that we hadn't yet seen until it grew dark. Our last day we'd firmly resolved to do nothing but enjoy ourselves, so we took advantage of the favorable exchange rate while we still had it and had a foot massage and a full-body massage! We also enjoyed fresh mango juice and delicious local snacks, and still had time to pack and ready our things before we each started our journeys back to our next destinations (England for me, California for Cate).
All in all, my travels were a perfect mix of scenic, relaxing, and delicious, and just what I needed before returning to England. But that, as always, is another story for a different day.
