Lian Fa Guilin

This in another area that is incredibly well lit and a stroll around our hotel in the evening along the river was simply stunning.

Our final stop in mainland China started with a cruise for 4-5 hours upstream on the stunning Li river. It was a fantastically sunny day and the air was clear and so was the river water, the scenery is hard to explain, I have never seen anything like it, huge rocks jutting out of the green landscape, the river was quite busy as this ...

... 1 other person who did it who wasn't near us. Bought some honeycomb on the way down - took 30 years to be made in a cave & still had bees attached & tasted pretty good.



Not a bad day but not outstanding - would be better doing on your own in local transport.

Slept all the way back & then had dinner at the hostel again as we were too tired to go out!

... side of the trek was not as stunning as Dahzai). Then we bumped into our friend Kerry - an aussie guy who was on our Yangzi river cruise.

Now there aren't that many western travellers in China, but the few who are here tend to do the same trip and you keep bumping into them again and again. Kerry had come straight to Pingan and missed Guilin (clever lad). He was staying in a traditional wooden house for 20 rmb (2pound) and we were jealous. If ...

... English and how tourism is their future. I still have my free oral English class every evening at 6. Only have a few people but we have fun. One of the kids came by she was learning a new song in school and wanted some help. Thought it might make a good Christmas card. Visited a couple of the local schools. One a new one a friend is setting up. He is into this many small school mode. I am not sure of his plan but he rents 3 or 4 rooms ...

... t fall asleep so I listened to my ipod and read with my cell phone light for a bit. Eventually I slept and woke up at 6 then, fell back asleep and woke up at 11. It was nice that I wasted that much time sleeping since I was stuck on a train. When I got up I ate some fruit and stretched a bit. Then sat down on Caroline's bunk reading the rest of my book. The train arrived in Shanghai at 4ish and we took the subway back to Jian Wan Station next to our apartment, then another ...

... v nobenem drugem jeziku kot v kitajscini. Razvitost pa seveda pomeni tudi precej visje cene in tako sva ze za prvo karto za vlak odstela priblizno 8 evrov, kar je bilo precej vec kot sva bila doslej vajena. Karto sva sicer kupila po daljsem razgovoru z rokami in risanjem na listice papirja, a zaradi mnozice kitajskih pismenk na karti in niti enega nam razpoznavnega znaka sva lahko do naslednjega dne le upala, da imava sedez na zelenem vlaku. Po srecnem nakljucju sva ...

... that were made 3000 years ago to guard the tomb of an emperor... They were lost and forgotten until the 1970's when farmers trying to dig a well found them... there are so many of them and so many possibilities that they still haven't finished excavating the site... they have, however, tarmaced over a lot of it in order to build a carpark... here's hoping they checked first! The first stop on the bus was a factory that now makes hundreds of ...

... Peak of Solitary Beauty. The landscape around Guilin is filled with these beautiful limestone karsts and this one is in the centre of the town. After simply climbing 300 steep steps up it one is left with a spectacular view over the town, but the climb itself is very rewarding, although in the sticky heat it was hard work. From there we went to Ludiyan or Reed Flute Cave, an enormous and stunningly ...

... a rush. The bus ride up here was so much fun though. The first two buses we took were modern air conditioned buses, but even still there was a live duck on one of them. Then the last bus we took was a true local bus, no air con and if you weren't careful you could fall out of the window it was so big. This bus was carrying all the people back with their supplies for the day. It was such a neat mix of products. There were eggs, live chickens and ducks ...

... That seemed to work and they finally left us alone. When we got to the top it was still a stunning view and green as always but the city has grown a lot and the top where I had my photo last time is ringed by signs and a metal fence. The top is crowded with tourists from around the world and lots of Chinese tourists too. Chinese tourism is booming. The City dwellers are loaded with cash and can not get visas to go outside China so ...