Once actually waking up, I made a detailed plan how to get to each sight
and what buses to take from one to the other. The information we got online did
not agree with what I found on the Chinese version of Google maps, I adjusted
the information. Feeling thoroughly in control of the situation and confident
in finding our way, we set out to explore the city.
For breakfast, we stopped at a cart that was selling, I don’t know how
else to describe it, round bread things. The cart was operated by Muslims and
was constantly blaring Middle Eastern music. It was rather popular, so we gave
it a try. Well, it was bread but not much more. Now we know. On to the buses!
My aforementioned confidence quickly began to wane, as I was looking at
the bus schedules. No bus 58. Or 88. In fact, I couldn’t find our destination
on any of the bus schedules. Half of the buses I had written down didn’t seem
to exist. There was nothing left to do than to go back to the hotel and ask for
directions. The receptionist told us that we needed to cross the street and
take bus 88. But there is no bus 88, I insisted. Yes there is, he replied.
After going back and forth, I gave up on trying to persuade him that there was
no bus 88 and we left again. Thankfully, Jenn remembered that there was another
bus stop across the street, which we hadn’t looked at earlier. Lo and behold,
that bus stop did in fact feature a bus 88. Hooray, my faith in my itinerary
was restored again. 
Our first stop was the famed Elephant Trunk Hill, which apparently looks
like an elephant drinking out of the river with his trunk. The story of the
hill is that a long time ago, there was an army heading north to war. One of the
elephants was tired and took a liking to Guilin. He decided to stay there and
aid the people. For his betrayal, he was killed while he was drinking out of
the river. There is a pagoda on the hill and it is said that it represents the
sword with which he was killed. When he was killed, he immediately turned to
stone. It is a popular landmark of Guilin, and we were excited to see it. Upon
arriving at the designated bus station we walked along the river toward the
viewpoint. We had to discover that we had underestimated the powers of tourism
and the money it brings. Realizing that the elephant trunk hill is a popular
destination, the city strategically planted an array of trees so that one could
not see the elephant trunk hill close up without paying to get into the park.
The price was very steep and we felt it unnecessary, especially since there are
other parts of the city from where there is a free (unobstructed by either
trees or prices) view of the hill. But we were not going to give up that
easily. Jenn asked if one could go inside just to look at the view, without
paying the steep price for the additional tour. No, that was of course not possible. I had another
idea. There were some views that promised to be quite good, and some trees that
promised to be the key to those views. So I climbed them, to the amusement of
Jenn and many other Chinese onlookers. I was ultimately disappointed in the
view, but the tree climbing was definitely fun. A good start to the day!
***
From there we walked to the bus station and got on bus number 2 (which
was indeed there, another point for my itinerary), which took us to our second
stop of the day: Piled Silk Mountain. Where the name comes from is a mystery to
us, but we heard good things. Walking into the park, it didn’t feel like much
at first. There was lush vegetation and many kids running around, clearly a
family outing place, but not much more. Additionally, the park was right in the
middle of the city, and we could not see any mountain around us. But not
letting the first impression deter us, we made our way up the mountain path.
There were many options and we chose one that looked like the most exciting.
And we were right.
On the way to the top we walked by the “hundred bird garden”
where we saw lots of peacocks and other, turkey-like birds. But the highlight
was definitely the mountain itself. The ascent was covered in trees, providing
all visitors with very welcomed shade and protection from the hot sun. The
views were spectacular. This little group of mountains was indeed in the middle
of the city and allowed us to see all across Guilin from a Birdseye
perspective. On top of the amazing view,
there was a nice breeze on the mountain, which made this a perfect spot to just
relax for a little bit. After thus relaxing and taking many pictures, we
started our descent. It was fairly quick and pleasant. By the time we got off
piled silk mountain, it was past lunchtime and we were in need of sustenance.
So we wandered the streets in search of a suitable establishment. There were a
few options, but we chose to disregard most of them because of questionable
sanitation. All of them had big signs saying “Tea and Oil”. I am just assuming
that “Tea” represented drinks and “Oil” represented food, as everything here is
either deep fried in oil or smothered in oil. We settled on one restaurant and
had a plate of noodles made from potato flour and stir fried eggplant with
(very fatty) meat. It was a great lunch and not too expensive. (Although I
should mention here that everything is more expensive in Guilin than in
Nanjing. The water is about 1-2 RMB more expensive per bottle and a plate of
Noodles that would cost 12 RMB in Nanjing costs 15-20 RMB in Guilin. On top of
that I have to admit that the food is generally much better in Nanjing). We
took our time (and so did the cooks) and then we were ready to move on to
destination three, the Reed Flute Cave.
*Piled Silk Mountain*
Enjoying our lunch!
***
Itinerary in hand, we walked back to the bus stop, ready to board bus 58. But there was no bus 58. In fact, when I asked people, nobody knew about a bus 58. Bus 58 had been recommended to me multiple times online, but it did not seem to exist. I looked on the bus schedule and again, could not find our destination. Thus began another hunt for the right bus, this time with a lot less direction. I asked myself from intersection to intersection, most people not really knowing where I wanted to go, how to get there, or me not understanding the directions I did receive. We ended up walking quite a long ways, and just when it seemed like we had walked all the way back to the hotel, we found bus number 3, which would bring us to the destination. We had to go quite a long way and were happy that there were seats open on the bus, a rare luxury in China. Eventually we did arrive at the famed Reed Flute Cave. It became clear when we were close, when we started seeing parking lots filled with tour buses and even more tourists. When something is worth seeing, everyone goes to see it. At the ticket booth we again found that the price was very steep, but this time we figured that it would be worth it. After all, it was a famous cave and you could not see it from any other place in the city. The tickets were purchased and we stood in line. At the ticket booth I noticed another group of tourists. They looked white, but not quite. I could not place them. They didn’t look exactly European, or American. Maybe Spain? Argentina? I did not know. Well, I would eventually find out.
The cave itself was spectacular. It was a natural cave, but to cater to the tourists, had been lit with all kinds of colorful lights. The stalagmites and stalactites were very impressive. To me it looked almost manmade, some of the formations just looked to good to be natural. Out of curiosity I asked a fellow tourist if this was all natural and he said “The cave is natural, but the lights are not”. Thank you for that clarification. We tried taking pictures, but they just couldn’t capture the beauty of the cave. The path through the cave lead to a large “room” inside the grotto, a truly amazing view. We don’t know why, but at that exact moment Jenn and I thought about what would happen if there were an earthquake. Confirming our fears, the lights in the cave suddenly went out and we heard a loud rumbling sound. This turned out to not be an earthquake, but a light show within the cave. Using one of the stone ceiling walls as a screen, we saw a 3D like animation of dinosaurs walking through the cave, water flooding it and mammoths walking on ice over the cave. This animation served as an illustration of the age of the cave and was definitely impressive, although maybe a little bit kitschy. This animation was followed a laser animation of a dolphin/dinosaur/dragon/airpline/I don’t know swimming/flying through the cave. We did not know the purpose of this second animation and it felt like it had been designed in the mid 1960’s when the cave was first discovered.
On our way back out of the cave, we caught up with the aforementioned
tourist group. What added to my confusion about there nationality was when I
heard them speak to one another. It was not a language I was familiar with.
Definitely not Spanish or any Latin based language. Not English or anything
Russian like and definitely not a northern European language either. It sounded
almost Middle Eastern. I was thinking maybe Greek? I could no longer contain my
curiosity so I turned around and asked a gentleman of the group where they were
from. Can you guess? Israel! That did indeed make sense to me! The gentleman
did not ask where I was from, but asked instead if I were German. Why yes, I
replied. He said that he had already told his wife that I was German earlier,
before we had spoken. I do not know how he knew I was German, as far as I could
remember I had not spoken any German. He told me that he could understand
German almost perfectly but not speak it very well, only “ein bisserl” as he
said it.
We concluded our visit to the cave, fought our way through many vendors
trying to sell us more photo books and other trinkets and found the bus stop.
The first bus arrived and as soon as it had slowed down enough for humans to
keep up with it, a cloud of Chinese people swarmed around the door, running
alongside the bus which continued driving slowly for quite some time. We
decided to pass on this bus and take the next one. This was a good decision,
since we actually got a seat on the second bus. The daily activities had
already taken up a lot of time and so we decided to return to the hotel and
take a little nap.
After resting for a little bit it was time for our evening activity: a
visit to the twin pagodas. On the bus ride there something interesting
happened. Bus fare in China is usually 1 or 2 RMB per person. It has to be paid
exactly, as the bus driver will not give you change. A man, who got on the bus
with us, had only a 20 bill and asked the bus driver for change. Of course the
bus driver did got give it to him. When the man tried to just give the 20 bill
to the driver, the driver protested. This is too much! Find change from other
people! And that is what the man did. At the next stop, the man put the 20 into
the collection box (he had now paid 18 RMB too much) and started to take the
money from the passengers getting on the bus. That he did until he had
collected 18 RMB and everyone was happy. Another mentionable thing about the
bus ride was that the bus driver apparently loved to sing. He had the radio on
and sang unabashed in both English and Chinese. Not a horrible singing voice
either!
We found the park easily and commenced our walk. It was a very nice area. There was a lake on which two Pagodas were built, one with yellow lights, representing the sun, and one with white lights, representing the moon. There was a path around and you could walk around the entire lake. It was busy, but not overly so. Here I should mention another phenomenon. As a white foreigner in China, one has to get used to stares and the occasional picture being taken of you. But in Guilin it is much more than just occasional. People take pictures all the time and we were asked multiple times if someone could take a picture of us or with us. This did happen at the twin pagodas as well. There was a group of young Chinese people who, overjoyed when they found out one of the foreigners spoke Chinese, asked us to take pictures with them. Of course we obliged. We would see these people later again in the park and we took some more pictures. It’s just a fact of life. In Guilin, you as a foreigner become one of the tourist attractions. It was a nice evening and the hotel was not very far and so we chose to not take a bus, but walk back.
The city was bustling with evening activities and many vendors were on the street selling their expensive goods. We saw little pouches of water that had living fish or salamanders in them. There were also many vendors selling little dolls which dance, lie down, sit up and stand up on the vendors command. We noticed though that these vendors always had a hand between their legs, which they were moving in accordance with the dolls movements. I am not entirely sure how it worked, but it must involve some kind of string. It was a good show nonetheless. Not only did we see many street vendors, we also saw a lot of police cleaning up street vendors. Once we saw a group of about 10 policemen taking care of a rather dangerous looking old lady selling food on the street. Other vendors down the street we then saw packing their things up and getting out of there before the police forced them to. Thus concluded another day in the fine town of Guilin, Guangxi province. Adieu.
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