Guilin

Trip Start May 01, 2007
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Trip End Jun 17, 2008


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Flag of China  , Guangxi Zhuang,
Tuesday, July 31, 2007

After ten days spent each night in a different city, I needed to rest my head in one place for a bit.  Surrounded by pinnacles straight from a coffee table book of China, Guilin felt like the right place to kick up my heels for a couple days.  The Guilin Flowers Hostel has everything a backpacker dreams of: budget rooms, with air conditioning, clean sheets, soft enough beds, friendly, English speaking staff, being on the same block as the train and bus station, good food, free Internet (well, they didn't seem to bother collecting) and a cozy lobby with cold beer.  This meant I met lots of fun people to talk to all day and all night.

For some sightseeing the first day I rented a bike and road around the city, checking out the Li River flowing through, snapping endless pictures of the incredible pinnacles enclosing the city, and weaving my way through the madness of Chinese commuting. 

One of my three nemesis--umbrellas, cameras, and ear phones--attacked me in Guilin Bamboo rice
Bamboo rice
 .  I biked out to Reed Flute Cave.  While inside, I stepped to the edge of a medium sized, dark room to set my camera on a ledge in hopes of capturing the colored lights they had set up to light the stalactites and mites.  The camera on, its lens fully extracted, I held it at the end of my outstretched arm as I, focused on the dark ledge in the cave wall, I unknowingly stepped off the edge of the stone pathway into a gutter, stumbled, and caught myself against the wall.  My camera slipped out of my hand, the camera strap attached to my wrist became a pendulum and my camera smacked, the extracted lens first, into the cave wall. 

The impact bent the extracted lens housing so that now it is permanently diagonal, extracted, and won't retract.  Definitely broken.  I said a few words, something like, "Gosh, darn".  4 umbrellas, 3 ear phones, and now, 3 cameras. 

Dejected, I rode back into town, and tried to enjoy the beautiful Jiang river cutting through the valley west of town.  Rounding a corner at the edge of town, my eyes popped open when I realized that a dump truck full of bricks at a stop in the middle of the intersection had a motorcycle under its right, rear wheel.  That put my minor complication in perspective.
Bamboo rice (1)
Bamboo rice (1)
And, four blocks later, I just happened to find a Chinese camera repair shop.  Three hours and $40 later, he fixed it.  That man elevated my opinion of China's abilities like nothing else I have yet encountered.  I almost kissed him.  I can't begin to tell you how relieved I felt, especially keeping the poor motorcycle and its driver in mind.  I hope the driver was OK. 

I pulled out all my coins and bills under 5 yuan and handed one each to every person begging on the way back.  When I reached the bridge over the lake in the middle of the city, I sat down on the railing and watched, in bliss, the sunset for 45 minutes. 
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