1 day in Guilin

Very early rise to get to the boat cruise in time but oh weekday a lovely breakfast. Yes, Chinese understand breakfast. West and East together, rice and soups and noodles and bao and dim sum and steamed buns of all sorts (I especially lovely the sweet corn steamed buns) joined with a full English breakfast. The Guilin Bravo hotel was great.
Our nice guide Boulin was waiting for us and we went to the docks (an hour away stuck in traffic). Major rush to get onto the boat and off we went. It was a 4 hour long cruise along the Li River, otherwise Yellow River, with sweet hills, small towns, verdant crags, and these odd peaks with names of animals or people, Dragons dancing with joy, Old man scolding his wife..
I didn't spend that much time outside, it was very hot and with mosquitoes, the ship was moving very slowly so there wasn't much air. I say at our sofa and table and spoke to our guide and looked outside listening to a soft music and the cruise guide's explanations.
We had lunch on the boat, rather yuck but still better than that awful lunch in Shanghai.
We arrived at about 2 pm on Yangshuo, a small river town that was so crammed with people that in Italy they would have shut the entry to the masses. Here no.. Stalls upon stalls on nothings. Finally we reached the town itself, streets of shops upon shops. It must have been over 40°, were found a small green realise and day there in the shade. I read that it was a perfectly normal little town work nothing until Lonely planet talked about it in the'80s and it because the tourist trap it is today.. meh.
The cruise was amazing though.
We went back to Guilin by bus and took Oleg to the hotel swimming pool for about an hour, he deserved it.
Yesterday evening we went by ourselves to a typical Guilin restaurant that Boulin recommended and had a great time trying to make ourselves understood. I never did get my tea, just a lot of Google's when I tried to order Chassis
After we went for a walk looking for the night market. We found it, a pedestrian street not far from our hotel with lots of stalls. We bought Oleg a magnetic toy that needs some skill to handle for about a euro and a side flute.
Welcome sleep after a hot, great day.Read more