Three weeks in Guilin

Three weeks in Guilin

The enforced three week stay in Guilin has given us the opportunity to have a good rest.  Mike has given the bikes some maintenance and Heather has been able to resume work on the blog because Jamie from England, who lives here at the hostel while he teaches English at a local school, has a program which bypasses the ban on blogs.  This has been great, only trouble is the internet is so slow it takes ages to get anything on.  The weather is overcast but not cold, it rains most days but on the whole not very much.

Guilin is a small city of 800,000 people, it is used as a stop off point for people on their way to Yangshou, the limestone structures can be seen from anywhere you go here.  We have been able to catch a “stairs” bus( double decker) to get around but we walk most of the time as a change from riding. Apart from people staying at the hostel there are no other non Chinese people here and people find us interesting to look at.  We visited a large park here which is well kept with lovely gardens, a couple of waterfalls, wild monkeys and a monastery. There was a lookout which we climbed and from there we had a good view of the city below.  While we were walking around on two occasions women stopped Mike to comment on his hairy arms and legs.  In Vietnam it was tan, here it is body hair. We are used to entering parks for free but very few parks here are free, there is a charge most times except for small public spaces.

We have been able to find good street food nearby, they treat us like locals and we have been good customers. Noodles are made by hand while you wait and it is fascinating to watch the dough being twisted, thrown, banged and finally pulled into long strings before being thrown in the pot.

Our visas are due for renewal and Guilin is a place which is able to issue them. We were hoping for a three month extension but they have told us this is not possible, one month only with one other one month extension possible.   We need to be in Beijing when the second extension expires, which will be 18^th June, we will have to leave the country and re enter with a new visas and the one month extensions start all over again.  We will have to pedal very fast to get to Beijing in time and hope that the weather suits us, that neither of us get ill and that the hills are not too big. If not, we will have to just catch a train or bus.

Nearby is the Dragonbackbone Rice Terraces and we were lucky enough to time our trip there on a clear day.  Only two days in the past month has been rain free, people coming back had told us how disappointed they were as the mist prevented them from seeing much. We went with a group of eight other people in a minibus and walked for hours along paths which took us along the terraces which were 400 years in the making. Up and down the mountains we walked, stopping for lunch at a café run by local ethnic minority women in traditional dress, the meal was not very appetizing but the rest of the day was fantastic.   We took a wrong turn as the paths were badly signposted and ending up walking further than we had intended, we were late getting back to the bus but the driver waited for us and was very good humoured about it.

Three weeks in Guilin

The enforced three week stay in Guilin has given us the opportunity to have a good rest.  Mike has given the bikes some maintenance and Heather has been able to resume work on the blog because Jamie from England, who lives here at the hostel while he teaches English at a local school, has a program which bypasses the ban on blogs.  This has been great, only trouble is the internet is so slow it takes ages to get anything on.  The weather is overcast but not cold, it rains most days but on the whole not very much.

Guilin is a small city of 800,000 people, it is used as a stop off point for people on their way to Yangshou, the limestone structures can be seen from anywhere you go here.  We have been able to catch a “stairs” bus( double decker) to get around but we walk most of the time as a change from riding. Apart from people staying at the hostel there are no other non Chinese people here and people find us interesting to look at.  We visited a large park here which is well kept with lovely gardens, a couple of waterfalls, wild monkeys and a monastery. There was a lookout which we climbed and from there we had a good view of the city below.  While we were walking around on two occasions women stopped Mike to comment on his hairy arms and legs.  In Vietnam it was tan, here it is body hair. We are used to entering parks for free but very few parks here are free, there is a charge most times except for small public spaces.

We have been able to find good street food nearby, they treat us like locals and we have been good customers. Noodles are made by hand while you wait and it is fascinating to watch the dough being twisted, thrown, banged and finally pulled into long strings before being thrown in the pot.

Our visas are due for renewal and Guilin is a place which is able to issue them. We were hoping for a three month extension but they have told us this is not possible, one month only with one other one month extension possible.   We need to be in Beijing when the second extension expires, which will be 18^th June, we will have to leave the country and re enter with a new visas and the one month extensions start all over again.  We will have to pedal very fast to get to Beijing in time and hope that the weather suits us, that neither of us get ill and that the hills are not too big. If not, we will have to just catch a train or bus.

Nearby is the Dragonbackbone Rice Terraces and we were lucky enough to time our trip there on a clear day.  Only two days in the past month has been rain free, people coming back had told us how disappointed they were as the mist prevented them from seeing much. We went with a group of eight other people in a minibus and walked for hours along paths which took us along the terraces which were 400 years in the making. Up and down the mountains we walked, stopping for lunch at a café run by local ethnic minority women in traditional dress, the meal was not very appetizing but the rest of the day was fantastic.   We took a wrong turn as the paths were badly signposted and ending up walking further than we had intended, we were late getting back to the bus but the driver waited for us and was very good humoured about it.