Guilin: Finding Oz in China

Three hours on a train, a short bus ride from the north train station to the city center, and a short walk and there I was, in Guilin! Guilin is one of those places I heard about and saw pictures of and was instantly in love and had to go there. It didn’t occur to me that it was an odd destination until many people asked “But how did you know that place exists?!”  And well, the only real reason is my addiction with travel, reading travel blogs, checking travel lists, admiring travel photos, etc.

So what is Guilin? It’s a Karst region in China featuring giant limestone formations surrounding a few rivers and lakes creating truly stunning scenery. There are two popular activities in the region both taking a full day: taking a boat down the Li River to Yangshuo to admire the surroundings and heading for the Longsheng Rice Terraces. I only had planned to do the Li River and was presented two options, a bamboo raft down part of the river ending in Xingping and then taking a bus to Yangshuo at ¥235 or a more luxury boat going down the river all of the way to Yangshuo for just over ¥400. I of course went for the bamboo raft the next day. But first, I had half a day to explore the city.

Guilin city has a number of things to see like the Sun and Moon Pagodas, Elephant Trunk Hill, Fubo Hill, Seven Point Park, Decai Hill, a pedestrian street, and a night market. I actually only ended up taking in about half of the sights as I was still recovering from my bad food choices. The Sun and Moon Pagodas sit out on a lake surrounded by beautiful paths. Elephant Trunk Hill (¥75) is a hill shaped like an elephant with a small archway that separates its trunk from its body. The whole area is quite extensive with the hill to climb, a temple, water front views, and a really unusual area called Lovers Island with tons of bizarre statues of couples. In some they are dancing in others playing leap-frog and then there’s a number that it is really hard to say what’s going on, but supposedly the island is a big place for wedding photos which makes it all weirder. As I ventured further and further from my hostel I realized exactly how exhausted I was and decided to head back by local bus. Buses are cheap 1 or 2 yuan, so I looked at my map, selected a bus route and jumped on, putting my fare in the metal box by the driver and waiting until the surroundings were familiar to jump off. I arrived back in time for dinner and met a nice older couple who were taking a six-week trip around China. She had taught in China years ago, and she wanted to share that part of her life with her husband.  They were pretty adorable, and I spent the evening chatting away with them.

A van came to collect us around 7:45am, and we were shuttled to a bigger bus and then off on about an hour drive to where we would catch the bamboo rafts, which turned out to be fake bamboo as the river gets too rough with all of the traffic to support real bamboo. Upon arrival we were split into groups of four. I had already befriended an Australian paralegal living in Xian teaching English so we were paired with two French guys, one who was an attorney in Hong Kong and one worked for the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. Fascinating group, and they loved that I had worked at LexisNexis. To get onto the raft you carefully cross all of the rafts tied up before it. I think we had to walk across about 12 rafts – Something that might be considered a safety hazard as they all bob up and down and shift further apart or closer together, but we all made it to the raft without falling in the water, somehow.

The ride was surprisingly calm just following the river around through the mountainous region. At one point we stopped to take pictures where the photo on the 20 yuan bill was taken and then continued on down the river. It was quite lovely, but not everything I had hoped for. We arrived in Xingping, a tiny little tourist town which sells a bunch of touristy merchandise and not much else and had about 40 minutes to wander around until the bus was leaving for Yangshuo. The town is small enough we ran out of things to look at and were happy to move on to Yangshuo.

Yangshuo is situated in the middle of the Karst region being surrounded on all sides with the limestone formations. It has one main road, West Road, that is jam-packed with shops, restaurants, food stalls, and more which dead ends into the riverfront where it holds an open air market selling more things I don’t need. Upon arrival, the Aussie girl and I signed up to go to the Dragon Bridge area to take real bamboo rafts along another part of the river (¥100) so we only had a few hours in Yangshuo. We found a lovely dumpling lunch and wandered most of the town all while being followed by a Chinese man and his camera. He literally followed us for 45 min taking photos. It was a bit weird.

Off we went to the Dragon Bridge to enjoy real bamboo rafts! These rafts only hold two passengers and the driver, if that’s the correct word for him!  To move the rafts forward, they use a giant bamboo stick that they dip down to the bottom of the river and push-off, raise it up, flip it, and do it again. Since the raft is made of only bamboo, it has some slits between the bamboo poles in the bottom where water freely comes and goes meaning your feet and the raft itself get quite wet. In addition to this, there are two small drops (like tiny waterfalls or rapids) you go over where the front dips in and you get splashed a bit. In addition to being fascinated in how the rafts work, the scenery was what dreams are made of. It was far more beautiful than the mornings sites as the river was not surrounded by brush so you could truly see the limestone mountains. It was breathtaking.

We found some excitement in getting up the two small drops as the one ramp had broken and everyone had to disembark standing on rocks while the drivers lifted the boats up to the next water level.  It was really quite a fiasco, especially since some of us have no balance!  But the second ramp worked which was like a quick amusement park ride as it carries you up the incline to crash down into the river creating a giant splash. Upon return to the river bank, we admired the river and landscape from the Dragon Bridge and were then headed back to the bus, but first, I got to feed a water buffalo! He was pretty cute with a giant tongue that would pop in and out. At this point I parted ways from my new Aussie friend as she headed back to Yangshuo and I headed back to Guilin to prep for a 25 hour train ride to Chengdu the next day. Guilin was everything I wanted it to be, and I highly suggest a visit!