Lying on her sick bed in Lijiang, Si Phong almost felt that she'd had her fill of China and of travelling. Fortunately, I knew that the perfect antidote was around the corner, which would ensure we finished our journey through the motherland on a high. We were flying to Guilin and had seven days of relaxation to look forward to, no planes or coaches to catch and all at sea level under an equitable climate.
Guilin lies in Southern China in the Guangxi province and is famous for its karst limestone peaks; strange lollypop/finger shaped mountains which rise up from the flat rice and wheat fields around them, giving the landscape an almost surreal look, a little bit like Marioworld made real. Its the quintessential image of China, captured over the years in countless paintings and images, recently the TV advert from HSBC.
However, those looking to have a defining China moment in Guilin City will be somewhat dissapointed. Its a pleasant enough place, but serves more as a base to the surrounding areas, with the very best of the countryside and scenery actually being located some 40km down the road in and around the town of Yangshuo.
We spent a couple of days in Guilin, with a visit to Longsheng rice terraces at the top of the to-do list. In order to give our travelling companion Sheenie the opportunity to meet more backpackers, we broke with our usual independant travel thing and signed up with a tour group. The plan backfired when we realised that our "English Speaking Tour" was a sham, and we'd been thrown in to a massive Chinese tour group.
As a result, rather than the idylic trek amongst the rice terraces and villages that we had envisaged, we found ourselves among the masses, following a tannoy wielding guide like sheep while we were funnelled in to various tourist processing spots where the "quaint" villagers proved to be just as adept at milking us for our dollars as they were at milking the cows.
Our dud day on the terraces was soon forgotten as we took a lovely cruise along the Li river the next day to travel from Guilin to Yangshuo. Yangshuo will be our home for the next 5 nights and will offer us the opportunity to experience a little bit of rural life in china.
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