Guilin...Day One
The trip from the hotel to the airport was pretty uneventful. The taxi was on time, we did not have much luggage and it was not raining too hard.
We pull up to the departure area and it is deserted..not a single car or person around. And there are hardly any lights on. Is the airport shutdown? Were we in the wrong place? We have no way of asking the driver..the only English he knows is 'Yes' and 'hello'.
Pay off the taxi and walk into the building. Spot a few people in the semi-darkness. Walk in further and discover more people, more lights and check in counters. An announcement in English asks passengers to Guilin to check in at counter # 68. But..all the counters are empty and #68 is in a section that is cordoned off!!
Walk around for a little bit and spot an airline rep behind one of the counters. She takes our tickets and hands out boarding passes. The flight is delayed by 30 mins and we land in Guilin at around 10.00PM. Our English-speaking guide Mary is there to receive us.
Mary belongs to an thnic group..the minority people. All non-Han people are called "minority people".
Mary's English is pretty good and we have no trouble getting all the tour details.
She wants us to pay in advance..we are not too sure we will see her the next day if we do. We finally agree on paying for one person and to pay her the remainder the next day. The min-van takes us to the hotel, we check in and head straight to bed.
At around 4.00 AM, I wake up soaked in sweat..the air con is not working. Toss and turn and finally wake up at 6.30.. We meet up with Mary at the lobby at 9.00 after a terrible breakfast.
Off we went to see the Reed Flute Cave...an underground cave with stalacites and stalagmites formed out of limestone rocks. A pretty spectacular sight...except for the weird lighting. We spend about an hour and a half walking around and then head off to Elephant Hill. On the way , we stop at a pearl exhibition. We are shown how pearls are extracted from the oyster. The area around Guilin is famous for fresh-water pearls. I end up buying a couple of bracelets..they come pretty cheap at 100RMB each.
Elephant Trunk Hill( a hill shaped like an elephant with its trunk in water) is on the Lijiang River. We spot some rafts on the river and hire one of those to take us across the river to the foot of Elephant hill. Not much to look around and we head right back in about 10 minutes. Next stop...Fubo Hill. Again, nothing spectacular..just a dozen Buddha statues carved into the cave walls. I do pick up some hand painted scrolls depicting the four seasons in Guilin. My bargaining pays off...i get 4 of them for 200RMB when the initial asking price is 320RMB. The shop owner compliments my bargaining skills..this according to Mary. For all I know, he was probably cursing me for being such a cheapskate :)
Mary tells us that is the end of Day One of the tour. She offers to drop us off at the city center for a spot of lunch. We head there and she takes us right to McDonalds...perfect. We decide it is too hot for window shopping and head back to the hotel for a nap.
For dinner, we decide to go back to the city center. We walk around for about 2 hours trying to find a restaurant with an English menu. It starts raining and we decide to head back to the hotel and brave the food there. On our way, we spot the Sheraton hotel. Lucky for us, they have a coffee shop. Dinner, hotel and sleep. We had switched rooms in the afternoon and the air con was a little better here.
Tomorrow is our cruise on the Lijiang river to Yangshou.
We pull up to the departure area and it is deserted..not a single car or person around. And there are hardly any lights on. Is the airport shutdown? Were we in the wrong place? We have no way of asking the driver..the only English he knows is 'Yes' and 'hello'.
Pay off the taxi and walk into the building. Spot a few people in the semi-darkness. Walk in further and discover more people, more lights and check in counters. An announcement in English asks passengers to Guilin to check in at counter # 68. But..all the counters are empty and #68 is in a section that is cordoned off!!
Walk around for a little bit and spot an airline rep behind one of the counters. She takes our tickets and hands out boarding passes. The flight is delayed by 30 mins and we land in Guilin at around 10.00PM. Our English-speaking guide Mary is there to receive us.
Mary belongs to an thnic group..the minority people. All non-Han people are called "minority people".
Mary's English is pretty good and we have no trouble getting all the tour details.
She wants us to pay in advance..we are not too sure we will see her the next day if we do. We finally agree on paying for one person and to pay her the remainder the next day. The min-van takes us to the hotel, we check in and head straight to bed.
At around 4.00 AM, I wake up soaked in sweat..the air con is not working. Toss and turn and finally wake up at 6.30.. We meet up with Mary at the lobby at 9.00 after a terrible breakfast.
Off we went to see the Reed Flute Cave...an underground cave with stalacites and stalagmites formed out of limestone rocks. A pretty spectacular sight...except for the weird lighting. We spend about an hour and a half walking around and then head off to Elephant Hill. On the way , we stop at a pearl exhibition. We are shown how pearls are extracted from the oyster. The area around Guilin is famous for fresh-water pearls. I end up buying a couple of bracelets..they come pretty cheap at 100RMB each.
Elephant Trunk Hill( a hill shaped like an elephant with its trunk in water) is on the Lijiang River. We spot some rafts on the river and hire one of those to take us across the river to the foot of Elephant hill. Not much to look around and we head right back in about 10 minutes. Next stop...Fubo Hill. Again, nothing spectacular..just a dozen Buddha statues carved into the cave walls. I do pick up some hand painted scrolls depicting the four seasons in Guilin. My bargaining pays off...i get 4 of them for 200RMB when the initial asking price is 320RMB. The shop owner compliments my bargaining skills..this according to Mary. For all I know, he was probably cursing me for being such a cheapskate :)
Mary tells us that is the end of Day One of the tour. She offers to drop us off at the city center for a spot of lunch. We head there and she takes us right to McDonalds...perfect. We decide it is too hot for window shopping and head back to the hotel for a nap.
For dinner, we decide to go back to the city center. We walk around for about 2 hours trying to find a restaurant with an English menu. It starts raining and we decide to head back to the hotel and brave the food there. On our way, we spot the Sheraton hotel. Lucky for us, they have a coffee shop. Dinner, hotel and sleep. We had switched rooms in the afternoon and the air con was a little better here.
Tomorrow is our cruise on the Lijiang river to Yangshou.
posted by dharu at
5:13 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home