Guilin – Day 1
A very early morning today as we had to leave our hotel at 6AM to catch an early flight from Xi’an to Guilin. Things started off on a rather down note as we got ripped off by a tag team of the cab driver and our bellman. Official cabs here have meters and a posted rate per kilometer, which generally works out to be fairly reasonable even for long distances. When we got in the cab, the bellman said a few words to the driver and then told us in English to just pay 150 yuan for the ride to the airport. Being 6AM and assuming the hotel staff wouldn’t be in on the scam, we just nodded and drove off. It was only halfway to the airport that we thought through the numbers and realized that 150 yuan worked out to about 100 kilometers, roughly 60 kilometers further than the airport.
Now as much as we have been taken advantage of here, it would be unfair to leave the impression that it isn’t a pleasant place to travel. The people overall are very friendly, but they have also mastered the art of making a little extra. Normally we just shrug and say it’s only five bucks so who cares. Only once we think about how many times we have said that do we realize just how quickly five bucks can become real money. Nevertheless, it is definitely part of the experience and makes for some good stories.
The plane ride to Guilin was uneventful. From the mix of passengers, it is clear that this is a popular stop on the tourist circuit, particularly the organized group tours from North America. At least 60 percent of the completely full flight was foreigners, and all the polyester on board had to have been a fire hazard.
Guilin itself is much different than Beijing or Xi’an. First off, there is less pollution in the air (although it is still smoggier than most US cities). It is also a much smaller city, so it seems less hectic and we were able to spend much of the day just walking through the neighborhood around our hotel and browsing through the shops. The biggest difference though is the scenery. Where Beijing and Xi’an were fairly flat, Guilin is surrounded by limestone karst formations that rise up for hundreds of feet. In many ways it looks like Krabi in Thailand, although it is much further inland. As is usually the case with panoramic vistas, the pictures will hardly do justice.
We took a small boat ride on the Li River in the evening. The boat was made up of about 10 bamboo shoots strapped together with rope and some deck chairs set on top. With 5 people (including the driver) it seemed to barely stay afloat, but we managed to putter around for about 40 minutes seeing some of the city from the water. Tomorrow or the day after we will take the bigger boat on the more famous trip from Guilin to Langshou.
We ended the day wandering through the market area just behind our hotel, stopping every so often to try something from the different food stores and carts. Some stops were very successful (like the bakery rack at the department store) and others not so much (the pancake with breadsticks and some kind of pickled vegetable wrapped up in it). Neither of us has been brave enough yet to try the corn juice stand, so that one remains an unknown.