China, Guilin: A Superb Greeting

Guilin, our first stop in China, was a much anticipated part of our year-long journey. As we mentioned in our last Vietnam journal entry (Hanoi), we were ready for a change from the Southeast Asian pace; we were looking forward to travelling in a much more developed and faster-paced nation. Travelling from Hanoi to Nanning, a transit city for us on our way to Guilin, was simple and relaxed.

The bus we booked was operated by China Travel Services (CTS) and was very nice compared to some of the buses we rode on in Southeast Asia. We didn’t have any trouble getting through the border crossing; everything was easier than expected and pretty much hassle-free. Saying this, an English couple from Birmingham were stopped for almost an hour because they no longer looked like their passport photos.

We were, at that point, able to understand why the Chinese hold Guilin close to their hearts

Once the Brummies (for the Americans reading this, that’s a nickname for people from Birmingham) were through immigration, they boarded our bus again and we left the border crossing for Nanning. A few hours later and we arrived at the Nanning long-distance bus station.

As we were approaching the bus station, a strange windstorm had started to brew up violently, kicking up lots of dust from a nearby construction site. The sky turned to unusual shades of purple and orange as a large cloud of dust started swirling around everywhere, like a mini-tornado.

All of the doors to the long distance bus station were open and immediately the wind found the openings and started blowing things down inside the station with major force. Some metal signposts toppled over and people were grabbing onto poles as the wind was blowing so strongly.

At this time, we had paired up with the Brummies in order to find an ATM to withdraw some cash. None of us had any Chinese Yuan (aka RMB) and it was necessary to pay for things in cash as many places in China do not accept credit cards. The Chinese don’t actually use credit cards that much because they don’t like to be in debt, but we think this is slowly changing now as the nation becomes more “Westernised”.

There were no ATMs at all in the long-distance bus station, so we had to take a taxi to the nearest one. None of us could speak any Chinese, and the taxi driver could not speak any English; however, thanks to our Lonely Planet guide to China, we managed to point to the words “automated teller machine” in Chinese and also “Bank of China”. We were whisked away to the nearest bank (enjoying the old taxi driver’s choice of a techno radio station and loud volume on the way), which ended up being over 20 minutes away!

The windstorm had turned into a torrential downpour and we were really worried about the situation, because we didn’t know (a) where the driver was headed, (b) whether the driver understood us, and (c) whether our bank cards would work in the ATM. Luck was with us when we arrived, and we were able to withdraw enough money to last us for a few days.

Back at the station, the rain had started to slow down and we didn’t get very wet when we got out of the taxi. After we had purchased our bus tickets to Guilin – we were very excited that we were able to travel through to Guilin on the same day – we had a quick bite to eat with the English couple and said our goodbyes. They were heading to a different city, Guangzhou, which was unfortunate as we would have enjoyed getting to know them.

Our bus to Guilin was another really good quality mode of transport; they even gave us a light snack to eat, and some bottled water. Before we knew it, we had arrived in Guilin (the five hour bus journey was nothing to us since we were fairly competent long-distance bus travellers by then).

It was rather late when we arrived in Guilin, around 11pm, and many people were hanging around the bus station offering taxi rides or accommodation. We had already booked accommodation at Guilin Backstreet Youth Hostel, so we hopped in what looked like a legitimate taxi and were on our way to a bed and some sleep.

After two taxi rides on our first day in China (the first in Nanning to the ATM and the second to our hostel in Guilin), we had decided that taxi drivers in China were much more reliable, honest and trustworthy than those we had encountered in Southeast Asia. There were many drivers in Southeast Asia who would gladly “take you for a ride” in order to cheat you out of money. Even two weeks into the country, we have still not come across that in China. We shouldn’t fail to mention that the taxi journeys in China are very cheap, too – always a plus! The only thing to be aware of is that you should have your destination either written in Chinese or pronounced perfectly when you get into the taxi; most drivers don’t speak any English.

Guilin Backstreet Youth Hostel was really nice and very centrally located. The young people running the place were super helpful and considerate, and even taught us some basic Chinese phrases to get by on when talking to people in the streets. The room we had booked was very modern and clean and rivalled the quality of places we stayed in Vietnam, probably edging out our Vietnamese accommodation by a fair bit.

For those of you who haven’t looked at our travel map, or don’t know how (we are going to give both sets of Kyle’s parents in Arkansas a computer lesson so they know how to use the travel journal website properly, e.g. expand the map, post comments, etc), you will see the Guilin is located in middle of the southern part of the country, in a province called Guangxi.

There are over 1 million people living in the city, and it is one place in China that always draws out national pride, no matter where you are in the country. Guilin is dotted with large, bizarre limestone peaks all around and is one of China’s greener, more scenic cities. The government put a lot of money into modernising Guilin to be the tourist-friendly destination that it is today.

After a tiring day of travelling from Hanoi to Guilin, we decided that sleeping in was the best thing we could do on our first full day in the city. With all of our early starts in Vietnam, waking up around 11:30am was perfect and we felt rested and refreshed, ready to tackle our first Chinese destination. We had brunch at the hostel and worked on our travel journal for a bit before heading out to see Guilin’s most famous park, Seven Star Park.

Our hostel was located off a main road along the Li River and, as soon as we started walking along the pedestrian path along the river, we were approached by two Chinese girls. They were very friendly and keen to speak to us – we later found out this was in order to practice speaking English – and once they figured out that we were heading to Seven Star Park, they offered to take us there. Having read about many scams in China, particularly in Guilin and Yangshuo, we instantly thought they were up to something and couldn’t be trusted.

It turned out that we were wrong and, after a nice walk in the warm sunshine with the girls, we arrived at the park unharmed and with all of the money that we carried with us when we left the hostel. A good lesson was learned that day, too; our scars from Southeast Asian scammers could indeed heal and the Chinese people can be given a chance.

At the park, we had less than two hours to see the two main sights we were interested in: Seven Star Cave and the park zoo. At the cave, we were not allowed to enter by ourselves; we had to follow a tour group, even though the tour guide only spoke (yelled, actually, through a loud megaphone) in Chinese. The cave was large with many chambers and lit very beautifully, but it was sad that some parts of the cave had been “formed” by the human hand rather than by nature itself.

Thirty minutes of following the Chinese tour guide was enough; we ran ahead of the group to leave as we had other things to see and were caved out by then. We headed to the zoo, where we spotted some adorable red pandas and a cuddly giant panda. We saw many different and unusual monkeys on display as well as our first glimpse of Chinese people teasing them, which we did not like at all. We had read in our Lonely Planet guide to China that the Chinese tease monkeys and we witnessed this firsthand.

Upon leaving the park, we went to a China Mobile store to buy a prepaid SIM card for Kyle’s mobile phone, so that we would be able to use it in case of emergencies. A very helpful salesgirl tried to aid us and once she figured out what we wanted, after 15 minutes explaining in broken English to her, she actually took us to another China Mobile store that was a 20 minute walk from the first one.

Getting the SIM card was no easy thing and we were hesitant to trust what was going on without fully understanding the situation, due to the language difficulties. Looking back, now that we are writing this entry a couple of weeks into our trip in China, it hasn’t been that bad dealing with people who don’t speak English once we figured out some good techniques in doing so. For example, using our new Mandarin phrasebook that we bought in Hong Kong has been really helpful; we have just been pointing at the words in Chinese and smiling.

The funny thing about Chinese people is that they are very interested in everything we do, EVERYTHING. By the time a woman stepped in to help us sort out our mobile phone SIM card request – she spoke English pretty well – a small crowd of Chinese people had gathered around us to see what we were doing. We can’t count the number of times that a group of people has gathered around us when we were looking for help or trying to do something. If we have been taking photos, recording a video, looking at a map or pointing out something in our phrasebook, there has been, without a doubt, at least one or two people behind us staring quizzically at the situation. This is quite amusing to us now and we have started to do it ourselves when something interesting is going on around a group of Chinese people.

Speaking of staring, the Chinese stares we have been getting seem to outweigh the ones in Southeast Asia during our 3-1/2 months there. It’s not that we weren’t stared at in Southeast Asia; instead, the Southeast Asians tended to add a smile and hello to their stares. The Chinese are a lot less used to having Western tourists, since the country opened its doors to tourism so much more recently in history than Southeast Asia has; therefore, they tend to stare at us without realising it. We have turned their stares into a game that has been working very well for us – we stare back at them very hard and when they realise we are looking at them in the same manner that they are looking at us, we deliver to them our best and friendliest “ni hao” (translated: “hello”).

In our game of deadly stares, as soon as we have broken the concentration of the person staring at us, we then open a conversation with them. At this point, they get embarrassed and smile towards us or stifle a giggle or two, and this is when we see the warmth that is truly hiding under their stone cold visages. That really makes a difference for us as we like to reward ourselves with bonus points in our game if they offer up a warm smile, haha.

The last point on Chinese stares – our clothing that we packed for this trip has mostly included shorts and t-shirts, as we planned our destinations according to warm weather locales. Could it be our sexy blonde-haired legs that cause Chinese eyes to drift downwards, or is it just the fact that they don’t really wear shorts like we Westerners do? We’ll never know, but in our game, if we catch someone staring really badly at our bare legs, we lift up a leg of our shorts and flash them a bit of knee and meaty thigh. There are smiles all around then and definitely some laughs!!

Let’s get away from our tangent about Chinese staring games, and get back to Guilin. We had now left Seven Star Park and by this point had also received a Chinese mobile SIM card. The next thing on our list was to grab some dinner and, after the trauma of sorting out the mobile phone, we chose a nice and easy place to eat – Pizza Hut.

You can’t think badly of us for eating pizza on our first full day in China, because there didn’t seem to be many restaurant choices on the large, bright neon-lit shopping street that we found ourselves walking along. Also, if you have been to China and have seen the posh Pizza Hut restaurants there, you can understand how tempting this stop was for us. The pizza was very good, by the way, despite using up most of our food budget for the day.

Guilin’s night market is one of the best markets we have encountered, and also one of the most fun bargaining experiences we have had. Previously, the market in Siem Reap held the coveted “best bargaining” prize, but it has now been replaced by Guilin’s market.

Here’s an example as to why this market was so good – Kyle picked up an item to look at, and he enquired about the price to see how much the stall owner wanted for it. The reply came back at 110 Yuan (around ₤7, or $13) and Kyle immediately said the price was too high and that we wanted to walk further down the market without buying the item. The owner then asked us how much we wanted to pay and Dan suggested that we offer a really low price to get them off our backs, around 15 Yuan (around ₤1, or $1.85). When this low counter-offer was given and we were ready to walk away empty handed, the stall owner didn’t even hesitate before telling us that the price was okay and that we could buy the item at almost 10 times less than the original offered price. We felt that we couldn’t pass up this great bargain and ended up buying it.

That evening, we ended up buying many souvenirs and gifts for people as a result of low prices and fun bargaining. The night market was about a mile long and there were many duplicate stalls along the strip. We think that, since so many of the same products were sold at different stalls, the stall owners were aware of the fact that turning down a sale due to a bargained lower price was not a good sales technique, as the shopper could find the same item further down the road. Note to travellers reading this: there is good souvenir shopping in Guilin. You can even buy many different bags of snacks there, including a bag full of dried or fried (we don’t know which) ants!

After traversing the night market, we came upon Shan Lake and its beautifully lit pagodas, Sun Tower and Moon Tower. After spending some time snapping photos, we headed back to our hostel, exhausted. The next morning, we finished off the leftover pizza from the previous night’s dinner before heading out into Guilin for another day of sightseeing and our first visit to a Chinese post office.

Zhengyang Pedestrian Street was quite modern and new, with many shops, bars and restaurants lining the sides of the narrow street. As soon as we stepped into the area, a young Chinese man approached us and started speaking to us in English. The same area at dark, which we observed the previous night, was a little dodgy with people offering “massages” and whatnot, so alarm bells rang when this man came towards us. However, we wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and ended up talking to him for about 15 minutes before deciding he was harmless and only interested in having a chat.

The guy, whose name we cannot remember, was a schoolteacher and was on a break. Apparently, he gets a few hours for lunch every day and has a fairly light schedule that would make UK and US teachers long for. We told him that we were heading to the post office and he offered to join us. We saw the benefit in this, with him being able to translate in Chinese what we needed from the post office clerks. Despite having a translator, the post office was a palaver (for the Americans reading this, that’s the same as a bit of drama or hassle)…

Post offices in China do not allow Chinese newspapers or other printed items to be used as packing materials, as the government does not want these items to leave the country. So, when we started crumpling up newspapers and stuffing a box full of them, the post office clerk helping us started taking them out, while appearing to be shouting at us (sometimes, when the Chinese speak, they seem to be shouting – a bit like Americans, haha). Our friendly schoolteacher-translator told us that the printed materials couldn’t be used and that the clerk would pack the box with some special expanding foam.

The girl helping us was new and she couldn’t get the foam-making machine to work, so no expanding material was available for our package. She also couldn’t open the large canister containing the chemicals which would allow her to make the foam by hand, so we took over and packed the box ourselves with some second-hand foam we saw sticking out of another box in the corner of the room. She wasn’t entirely happy that we did her job for her, but we were satisfied to have packed the box so we could leave the building.

As a reward for helping us at the post office, we bought the teacher a coke, and then he led us to the gates of Wang Cheng Palace, a 14^th century palace whose grounds contain the famous Solitary Beauty Peak. We skipped the palace museum as all of the exhibits were explained in Chinese and we headed towards the steps to climb the 152 metre peak. The climb was rather easy and only took us about 15 minutes. It was well worth the climb, as the 360-degree views offered splendid scenery. We were, at that point, able to understand why the Chinese hold Guilin close to their hearts; the limestone peaks jutting up into the air all around a beautiful city were stunning, indeed.

The rest of the afternoon in Guilin was spent visiting another park at Mulong Lake, where we saw a tall pagoda and beautiful bridge surrounded by a very traditional Chinese group of houses and a tall hill. Leaving Mulong Lake, we walked along a well set path along many lakes that were separated by their own unique bridges. The sun started to set as we approached the last of the bridges and Mother Nature showed us some splendid sunset views with the bridges, lakes and limestone peaks all dotted around in the background. We were extremely impressed with Guilin by this point, as it was such a beautiful city.

A DVD store was located near the final bridge we passed and we ended up buying a few DVDs to watch later in the trip. The quality of the DVDs was excellent but the funny thing was that a couple of the DVDs were initially dubbed over in Russian. Once the store clerk explained that the audio setting could be changed to English, we made the purchase and left, happy to have spent $5 (₤3) on three very recent films.

Dinner was the next port of call, and we wanted to try a restaurant serving local delights that was recommended to us by the schoolteacher. His sister actually owned the restaurant and, since he seemed like a nice and sane guy, we thought her restaurant would be a safe bet. We can’t tell you the name of the place because it was only written in Chinese, but we can tell you that the menu included such local delicacies as dog meat, rats, turtles, rabbits and snakes, all available in a hot pot or stir-fry, whichever was to your liking. Not feeling adventurous, we ordered chicken and vegetable dishes, but we snapped some photos of the menu for you to look at in our photo album for this journal entry.

We didn’t really enjoy our dinner because we kept thinking of the other creatures that had been cooked in the same pots and pans as our food, and we couldn’t get into the food that much. Back at the hostel, we called it a night as we had previously booked our Chinese boat cruise down the Li River and we were going to be picked up early in the morning around 8am. We booked the “Chinese boat” because we didn’t want to pay double the money for an English-speaking cruise, full of Western tourists, down the river. We figured that the scenery lining the riverbanks was what we would get most out of the journey, but please read our next journal entry to understand how the cruise went and whether or not we felt we might have benefited from the “English boat”.