Checking out Guilin

Checking out Guilin

Guilin, China, Asia

I got up this morning at about 7am, and had gotten about 3-4 hours sleep. That’s pretty good considering I had my backpack and camera bag on the pillow with me so I had so little room in the bed. Every time I moved, I got my backpack right in the face, but at least I knew it was still there! We were supposed to get off the train at 7:35am, but we were delayed by a couple of hours so we got in around 9:30am instead.

Greg didn’t have any accommodation booked, and I sold my pretty well, so we shared a taxi and came to the Ming Palace Youth Hostel. They had another single room available so Greg nabbed it for a couple of nights. I am pretty impressed with this place for $10 a night. I got upgraded to a double room from a twin, so I had a bigger bed, plus it has A/C and wifi in the room. The location seems pretty good too.

We got settled in and took showers and then Greg and I headed off for a walk around Guilin. It is a very cool city. Much cooler than Guangzhou anyway. We followed the Li River through the city and found some little lakes with cool bridges and little traditional looking Chinese huts on some islands. We walked around for about five hours and eventually made our way back toward our hostel. We met a Chinese guy named Tao and he was wicked nice. He showed us where the government tourist board was so we could book some tours (and I didn’t feel scammed because Lonely Planet said that’s who you should book tours through anyway), and then he brought us to his art gallery, and then a little tea shop. Neither one of us ever felt pressured to buy anything, and then at the end of our encounter, he just smiled and said “enjoy your stay in China.” The guy at our hostel said he was a scammer who tries to get people to buy tours and paintings and tea, but if that’s the case, he was a terrible salesman. I still think he was just a nice guy trying to practice his English with us.

We got back to the hostel and had a bite to eat and I decided that my next destination would be Chengdu. It supposed to be this awesome city where you can go see pandas at a reservation, a bit like the orangutans I saw in Borneo. A few French girls were making their way to the train station as well so we took a bus with them which was way cheaper than getting a taxi. We got there and I had a little note from the girl at reception from my hostel which had exactly what I wanted written down in Chinese. I figured this would probably help me get what I wanted a lot easier, and I was right. We found the line that I needed, and the girl understood it perfectly, “one ticket to Chengdu, hard sleeper, lower berth, October 10.” No problem, the lower berth was even available, 208 yuan. I only had 200 with me, and Greg was out of money too. We had to go search he city for an ATM that would take a Visa or Mastercard and finally got one. We got money, rushed back to the station and she had saved the bed for me, jackpot! I got my ticket so I’m good to go in a couple of days.

By this time it was dark out so we walked back to the hostel through the city and it looks pretty cool at night. I hadn’t brought my camera with me to the station, stupidly, but Greg has the same Nikon D7000 as me, so he let me take a few pictures with it so I can steal them later. We came back and just chilled at the hostel where we ran into a couple of crazy people from the street. One guy just came up and started reciting US cities to me, I’m not sure what I was meant to do. Greg and I couldn’t stop laughing at this weirdo, so eventually I just said I’m tired and have to go to bed. I’m not sure if he was ever going to go away. There are a lot of cities in America and this guy seemed intent on naming them all. Ah well, tomorrow we’re going to catch a tour down the Li River. It’s another thing on my Top 100 list, so I hope it’s as good as it looks!

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