Don't bother with Guilin

  Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang, China
Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Most people I'd met who'd travelled through Guilin gave the advice to not stay there.  They said start in Guilin only to catch the Li River cruise to Yangshuo and then spend your time in Yangshuo.  Good advice.  Bad listening.  We spent three days.

Guilin has been a major tourist destination since the Song dynasty.  It's main draw is the karst limestone mountains and cliffs along the Li River.  It also boasts such Chinese standbys as rocks that look like shit, mountains that look like shit, and a famous cave lit by big colored lights with - you guessed it - stalactites that look like shit.  Being such a prominent toursit destination, Guilin charges twice as much as it should for everything.

Reed Flute Cave

After climbing "Guilin's #1 Mountain!" in sweltering heat to not see the skyline through the haze and pollution and then descending into the cave of lights and rocks that look like shit, I gave up and hid in the air conditioned hotel to get caught up on some things online.  Later on that night I went for a massage.  Somehow, through the magic of Guilin, my neck was worse after the massage than before.  I ate a poorly made dinner and sipped on LiQuan beer - the crappy sawdust-tasting local that seemed to be the only thing available in Guangxi province

Elephant Trunk Hill

 

Bamboo Boat

The one highlight of the city was a boat ride down the shallows of the Li in the middle of the city to see Elephant Trunk Mountain - a karst formation that supposedly looks like an elephant dipping its trunk into the river.  I didn't care much about the rock, but it was cool to be on the river in one of the bamboo raft boat things the locals used.

We were supposed to catch the train to Hanoi from Guilin after spending a day on the river cruise.  The train sold out - as had every single train since we reached the south of China.  Another bus ride loomed ahead.