The other plus side is that due to Monster's generosity with my recent severance, I didn't have to go super budget. That meant I got to skip a 13 hour overnight bus ride with a one hour flight, all for about £40. Result!
I know I've mentioned this before but man, it is simply amazing how fast China is developing. Guangzhou domestic airport was no different, with dozens of flights an hour to all sorts of destinations I've never even heard of in China. It's hard to wrap my head around it, but whereas the US has something like 10 cities with over a million, China has over a 100. Even Guilin is a town with a mere 300,000.
Right – so got sorted at the efficient and perfectly located Backstreet Hostel with a great (and yes, air-conditioned) room, then went out exploring.
Guilin and the surrounding area are renowned for the limestone karsts/hills that suddenly rear up at ever side. Beyond great views, places like “Folded Brocade Hill” play home to temples and pagodas, all connected by entirely way, way too many stairs. I lost track at 300 at one point.
I perked up a bit after heading downhill, and took a different route back downtown. It's always fun to get away from the 'standard' tourist trail; you never know what you're going to find.
In this case, I was soon winding my way through a local market... and when I mean local, I mean VERY local. I got lots of grins and shy smiles all the way through, especially in the meat section, when I asked to take a picture of... this:
… it might be normal eating to the Chinese, but they giggled and chattered to each other – I'm guessing out of surprise that anyone would want a pic of something so prosaic.
Pig snout out of the way, I then saw one of the coolest punk chickens ever... I kept thinking Billy Idol for some reason.
… before hitting the main street. In this case, I was smack dab in the middle of 500 meters of nothing but mobile phone stores, all selling the same things. Crazy.
And, uh, purely in the interests of cultural experience, I hit up the local arcade for some serious regression. It was pretty awesome to be able to play games for a reasonable $.25 instead of the near-extorionate $1 plus as in the States.
Right, then it was a quick stroll through the massive main square and over to the Moon/Sun Pagodas, smack dab in a lake in the center. Once there, I was asked to have my picture taken with a cute Chinese girl. I'm never sure why this happens, but it seems like Chinese locals like to have random Westerners in their pics... as this was the third or fourth time in a few days, I figured I might as well return the favor, and get a picture as well...
(and a bit later at night)...
A beer in the main pedestrian plaza and then over to a Chinese only restaurant with fantastic sizzling beef/mushroom skewers was the extent of day one; let's just say that Guilin isn't going to challenge Hong Kong with its booming social scene.
The next day was even better – as I jumped on a day tour out to the famous Dragon Rice Terraces a few hours outside of town. I pretty much loathe tour groups and guides, so my original plan was to sort out local transport, but with the number of bus changes, I figured I'd just take the easy way out this time.
Easy way, schmeasy way – the bus got us their no problem, but with the dubious benefit of having the Most Irritating Tour Guide in the world. He had the endearing habit of explaining everything in Chinese first, fair enough, and then in English. Great - that's cool.
What truly elevated him into such exalted heights of annoyance was his love of using MAXIMUM volume at all times, and then, for bonus points, repeating himself slightly three different ways. And finally, his voice was just the precise pitch to effortlessly pierce my headphones' music... Beastie Boys, Moby, Rolling Stones, they all failed to combat the drone. Ah, the joy.
On the plus side though, he did tell us a bit of good info about our first stop, where we would have an hour at Longsheng village, home of the Yao, whose women never, ever cut their hair. By the time they're adults, it's often 1.5 meters in length and is always kept bound except for when alone with the husband. Plus, the manner in which it was bound tells who is single, married, and/or had a child. Hm – as a single guy, I couldn't help but think this would be helpful back in London...
Savvy to tourist rackets by now, I passed on the lcheesy ocal dance show, and walked through the village, before crossing the rickety suspension bridge, whose sign didn't really inspire confidence...
… once across safely, I brought out my balloons for the kids of the local tribeswomen. It was fantastic, as once again, a smile and a few words of Chinese was enough to have a connection and get beyond the “oh, he's got money, let's get him to buy something” vibe.
One old lady in particular was awesome, just grinning with a fun sparkle while smoking like a chimney – she loved having her picture taken and shown to her...
We switched to a shorter bus and headed up, up, and up for about 40 minutes. Hairpin turn after hairpin turn. Ugh. More announcements from our tour guide. Fierce internal debate about what would be less painful – sudden plunge off the mountain, or twenty more minutes of his voice. Death by crashing won out...barely.
But all that aside, once we got there – it was absolutely worth it. The terraces are... well, I'll just let the pics do the talking:
Swarming with tourists like most major sights in China, I abandoned my tour group and headed out into the fields and got both some peace and quiet, plus some good shots looking back on the town:
Then, back in town, I had an... interesting... lunch. First up was sticky rice cooked over an open fire inside a bamboo tube – very good, with a nice smoked flavor I've never associated with rice before. After that though, was a tasty enough fish, but with the extra challenge of having hundreds of tiny invisible bones. I think I spent more time picking out bones than chewing, and eventually conceded defeat – fish 1, Mike 0.
On the way out though, one of the staff had a ridiculously cute kid – so a balloon was of course required. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment