Guilin,
China
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Erin had wanted to come back to Guilin to see one of the caves, but she chose sleep instead so we took it easy today. We wandered up to see if we could see the Elephant Rock from shore. The Elephant Rock is a famous formation that appears to be an elephant dipping its snout into the river. We should have been able to see it from shore, but that would have been free and that can't happen. Instead, they very obviously have screened off the entire river view with three layers of carefully chosen plants and bamboo. It is very obviously designed so you can't see the rock and have to pay to enter the park. This annoyed me greatly, and since it didn't seem to make economic sense to pay $10 for a good picture of the rock, we took a photo through the trees and called it a day. We weren't the only ones. Just another obnoxious trick right up there with the "scenic area." There are a lot of scenic areas in China. What this means is that people want to see one main attraction. So instead of charging a small entry fee to see it, the Chinese create a couple other attractions around it and call it a scenic area. They can therefore triple the price. And build a cable car or have electric vans from the front entrance to the park.
Anyways, we got some food for our ride and went to catch the train. Although I wasn't happy at the "accidental" soft sleeper, it was interesting to see how the richer class travelled. Instead of six beds, you have four beds and a cabin you can close and lock. Other perks include the ability to decide when the lights go off. Overall, not really worth double. We found ourselves in a practically empty car with a couple other tourists. We did have a long train ride ahead of us though, and it sure was nice to get a good night's rest without having to worry about snorers and bags getting stolen.
~Travis
