Guilin and the Li River to Yangshuo

Rice Terraces

We arrived in Guilin early evening, met by Lily and Mr Lo our new guide and driver. As we drove to our hotel - the Guilin Park on the lake - we could see that the surrounding landscape is beautiful with huge karsts dominating. These limestone karsts are a distinctive shape, usually tall and narrow with a rounded top.

The following morning we woke to rain. It was, after all, the rainy season, so not entirely unexpected. A long drive to the rice terraces through magnificent scenery: brilliant green paddy fields, tea plantations, clouds drifting between mountain peaks.

When we arrived at the village where we were to have lunch it was again raining. Lunch was authentically local: young pea pods with smoky bacon, fried white cabbage, bamboo shoots and egg, seaweed and egg soup, rice - all good and in huge quantities. We did not wish to offend but really could not do justice to all this good food. The girl serving us was lovely, a student at Xi'an University studying English and Tourism.

We climbed to the top to view the terraces, passing farmers working the paddy fields oblivious to the rain. A horse drawing a manual plough pushed by a farmer covered in plastic, wading to the ankles in water. At the top we had a thunderstorm which was quite worrying. However, afterwards the clouds cleared sufficiently for us to see the beautiful landscape of rice terraces named "Seven Stars and Moon" before the weather closed in again.

 

This is a place we will certainly return to but we're not sure what time of year is best. We love the green of the terraces at the moment but at this time of year you always run the risk of rain storms!

Next time we'd like to stay in this area and do some walking in the fabulous mountains and terraces.

Tea ... and a short uphill climb.

On our return we stopped at a Tea Plantation and the second tea tasting of our visit. One in Beijing had been exceedingly messy - here it was much better and we tasted five different teas: green (smelly and tasting of gooseberry, much stronger than hotel tea), lychee and black which is quite sweet, jasmine, ginseng and oolong, osmanthus (local flower - Guilin means "osmanthus flower") and oolong - we both liked this and the green tea best.

Back in Guilin the river was flooding. Quite a climb, the view from the top of Fubo Hill is impressive. The peak lies in Fubo Park - both named after General Fubo of the Han dynasty.

Gulin Food Market and the Reed Flute Cave

The following day the river was very high and there was some discussion as to whether the boats would be allowed down the river so we were able to spend some time on our own exploring Guilin while it was decided what would happen.

At 8a.m. lots of people were eating noodles (I suppose this shouldn't surprise us!) in numerous cafes: very basic wooden tables and chairs usually.

We came across a market which was fascinating: sacks of rice, counters covered with meat, vegetables, mushrooms, spices, duck (we'd seen duck farms on our drive the previous day) - some of the smells were rather strong!

Back at the hotel the river trip was on. Before arriving at the jetty we visited Reed Flute Cave - amazingly lit sequences of stalagmites and stalactites.

 

 

 

 

 

Left: a colourful page from the scrap book for Guilin. So many of the entrance tickets were beautifully designed it was a shame to throw them away!

Li River

 

At the jetty a very large number of boats were to go in convoy down to Yangshuo. We shared our table with six friendly Japanese/Korean gentlemen.

The scenery is spectacular, the lack of sun compensated for by the atmospheric mist drifting between the karsts.

We must come back and spend more time here - the scenery is just stunning. The river was running so fast that we made the journey in only two and a half hours - normally it takes four!

Yangshuo

A short walk from the landing stage to our hotel - the Paradise (Bill C. stayed here - the hotels where he stayed are very proud of it).

We wandered around Yangshuo which is great for bargains, then decided we had had enough Chinese food and opted for pizza and a bottle of wine. Not bad at all, and the crepe suzette was excellent.

Rained all night and in the morning the small courtyards in the hotel looked flooded, though not yet reaching the covered walkways. We walked down to the river, borrowing hotel brollies, and it was really speeding along.

Enjoyed a very scenic drive to the airport: lots of karsts to see and also water buffalo (good climate for them!).

We had an excellent lunch at the airport: beef/onion/peppers - quite spicy, chicken in a crispy coating (but quite bony!), beans and very good egg fried rice.

Shanghai

We were able to choose the end point of our holiday: either Shanghai or Hong Kong. We weren't too keen on Hong Kong - its main attraction seems to be shopping which does not appeal, and we'd heard good things about the Bund so we opted for Shanghai. We were not disappointed and both really liked this city.

Met with the usual efficiency at the airport, the drive to the hotel revealed a city, like Beijing, with a lot of construction work going on. Whereas the architecture in Beijing is massive and blocky, here it seems much more modern. The Shanghaiese are obviously sensitive on the subject of the Olympics and keen to point out that they host the World's Fair in 2010 with the theme "Better City – Better Life"!

Our hotel is the Panorama at the north end of the Bund, close to the Huangpo River, and the view of the Bund from the bar on the 31st floor (which also does an excellent Tequila Sunrise), especially at night, is fantastic. We had a beautiful serviced apartment which was great - lots of space to spread out.

The Bund is certainly an impressive street - it gets its name from an old Anglo-Indian term bunding: the embanking of a muddy foreshore. It was the heart of old Shanghai's commercial district in the British concession, and a working harbour in its heyday.

I like Art Deco so we set out on our first day to track down a couple of examples: the Peace Hotel, which turns out to be closed for 18 months for renovation, and the Metropole Hotel, which is open. It's nice, and does a good cocktail, but for Art Deco go to New York, and of course London has some fine examples. We didn't see any fine decorative detail such as can be found on Art Deco buildings elsewhere.

Although M on the Bund comes highly acclaimed, we didn't find anything to tempt us on the menu. In the same building, albeit in the basement so without the views, is Lin Bar & Grill, which does excellent fillet beef and Spanish Suckling Pig, washed down with a more than acceptable Tuoling red.

Walking back along the Bund is extremely pleasant. The long waterfront Promenade is popular with the locals and there are lots of food vendors, including candied plums which are fantastic - messy but fantastic!

The restaurant in the Panorama is on the 30th floor and a window table has excellent views of the river, which is a fully working river. A continuous convoy of huge barges laden with sand, gravel, coal, timber makes its way upstream.

One evening we took a boat trip on the Huangpu river - a stately promenade down and up the river in front of the Bund on an illuminated boat. Followed by a very good meal at TSens on the Bund: prime rib of beef with extra chips (albeit delivered after we'd finished the meat!), California Merlot and freshly baked bread. Finished off with a drink in the Panorama with the view of the Bund that I doubt can be bettered.

The Jade Buddha Temple and Yu Yuan Gardens

The Jade Buddha Temple was our first guided visit. It is a lovely building, corridors festooned with red lanterns, fierce gods and trees with red prayer ribbons. The white jade Buddha is truly lovely (no photography).

On to the Yu Yuan Gardens, a classic Chinese garden with pools, bridges and rocks; Ming Dynasty architecture, with circular entrances typical of the south, and the usual annoying Rolex sellers - the only brand in the whole of China it seems! We ate lunch here in a tea house but it was not as good as other Chinese food we have had.

On the way back to the hotel we visited the Confucius Temple, where we prayed with incense sticks and were prayed for by the monk with three strikes of the bell - it was very moving.

On our own in the afternoon we crossed the Bund and made our way to the Beijing East Road. This is full of shops which, as we have seen throughout our travels, line the street completely open, and are closed at night by a by an iron shutter.Here all kinds of hardware is on sale: nuts, bolts, cable, string, tubing, car radiators, gaskets, electronic components, bicycle tyres being repaired and the usual mass of humanity hurrying along.

Water Village at Zhujiajiao

The following day we visited the water village at Zhujiajiao with dire warnings of not to eat anything as the river water, none too hygenic, is used for washing fruit and vegetables.

The town grew rich from the Ming dynasty trade in grain, silk and pottery as it lies on the large Jinghang Canal connectiong Suzhou and Shanghai.

It's a very picturesque place, and we had time to wander on our own, visiting a small museum which had a lovely little exhibit on the development of the plough from a simple stick used to dig a hole, adding a cross-bar to stand on (i.e. a primitive spade), to a curved stick for digging a furrow. Discovered that what we thought was ploughing on the rice terraces was probably ploughing in manure to enrich the soil. The pharmacy is very interesting too with a wall of drawers and lovely blue and white pottery.

On to the silk factory for lunch, though we declined a visit to the factory itself where we can see ranks of looms spinning thread from cocoons. Chinese food was beginning to pall!

 

 

We took the subway to the French concession to see the colonial housing areas. The Sun Yat-sen house seems very British in its interior and lawned garden. Dr Sun Yat-sen was the first president of post-imperialist China. He lived in this house from 1918 to 1924 and the interior holds many of his personal possessions.

Mr Morris's Tudor-style house (he was a newspaper magnate) is a peaceful oasis and now a fine hotel.

In the parks we wandered through, kite-flying is very popular.

We travelled to the airport on on the Mag Lev train - only 7 minutes to travel 30 km, with a top speed of 431km/hr - there's a display on the train of its speed. A fitting way to end a wonderful holiday.