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Spring Festival 2013 Destination: Guilin!


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The link was posted earlier this year to beautiful and natural China. Well we have decided to start with the Li River and sights near Guilin on our Spring Festival holiday trip... don't forget the back of that 20RMB note:

http://images.travelpod.com/users/loisal99/1.1262202213.li-river-on-back-of-20-rmb-note.jpg

 

Has anyone been there? Any tips?

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Looks like a really nice trip for New Years. You are getting to live the life and looks like you are doing it right. Good on yer Fu Lai

 

Ma and Ba are older now and not many years left so our trips to China are sorta restricted to their city, for now. Our son has another year of high school and then goes to university. We've talked some of takin' our monthly retirement and investment income and living in our China home a bit as a base to travel from. Could live real well on 45,000 yuan a month, eat lots of fish head soup and see the sights. For 4 years I was preparing myself mentally and physically to become an ex-pat, even sold off the houses, toys, and vehicles I had and started renting a cheap place. I wasn't going to lose my wife because of the lunacy of the State Department so it was going to be a forced ex-pat...lol But 2011 saw the State Department do the right thing finally and give my family their visas. I no longer picture myself becoming an ex-pat but it would be nice to see the countryside of China. I like China a lot and it's people but I would shrivel up and blow away in the smog if I left the openess and freedom of the rural mountains for a city....in any country.

 

The view you show in the photo reminds me so much of the Glasshouse Mountains in SE Queensland, Australia. The pumice caps of ancient volcanoes from so many millions of years ago...so peaceful so beautiful.

 

Enjoy the pastorial beauty of ol' rural Chinertucky, it is surely one of the most beautiful places on this old dirtclod.

 

tsap seui

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Also in Yangshuo -

(Zhang Yimou's Liu Sanjie')

Some of the places to visit while there include a night cruise around Guilin, Elephant Trunk Hill, Reed Flute Cave, an aquarium, an all THEY can eat zoo (complete with dancing bears, feed the lions, feed the bears, they feed a water buffalo to a tiger), the Li River cruise, and the Longsheng Rice terraces.

 

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from our hotel window

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.

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ChunMei and I flew into Guilin just before New Year two years ago and took the Li River trip to Yangshuo. Rode the last 15 miles on a bamboo raft with an outboard. Beautiful trip.

 

Spent 5 days in Guilin and Yangshuo, took the bus back to Guilin from Yangshuo, then took the train to Nanning the day before the beginning of the New Year holidays. Now that was a standing-room only adventure of sorts. Everyone actually had a seat, but mine was at the other end of the car from ChunMei. Spent most of the ride helping my seatmates practice their English. Had a great time.

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Dress for cold weather. The humidity there penetrates you to the bone. A 50 degree day can feel like 30. Many place do not have heat in them. I can recall going to a restaraunt and shivering between bites. We went to my wife's parents home and for heat they had a small bucket with charcoal in it. We all ate with our coats on. This was in Nanning, China.

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Last trip to China, wife took me to Guilin to meet one of her best friends. I got a bit burnt out and didn't feel like going out with wife and friends listening to them yack on in Chinese all night. I decide to stay back in the hotel. Anywho, I hear music and singing, so I walk out on the balcony and see that the music is coming from a park over on the corner. It definately sounds like there's karoke going on. So, I mozie on over to the park and find that this is a typical evening festival in Guilin... even though the locals don't consider it a "festival" like I do. People were lined up to have the DJ play their music that they would proudly sing along to in a loud PA system while others danced to the music.

 

Guilin left and indelible impression on me that night.

Edited by Dennis143 (see edit history)
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There are some beautiful views from Yaoshan mountain, just outside of Guilin. The cable car ride costs around $18, best I can remember. The problem is getting there and back to town. We had a friend drop us off and when we left we walked out to a cab and they didn't want to take us as they were reserved and waiting for their customers. We finally got one guy to drive us a couple miles to a bus stop. If you hire a taxi to wait while you go up the mountain and walk around, the cabbie would probably be waiting for two hours for your return.

 

In Yangshuo you can rent a small boat with driver for just the two of you for about $15 for an hour to an hour and half down the Li. Have your wife go negotiate with the local vendors near the river (you'll need to hide and they may renig on the price when they see there is a laowai).

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We had a

There are some beautiful views from Yaoshan mountain, just outside of Guilin. The cable car ride costs around $18, best I can remember. The problem is getting there and back to town. We had a friend drop us off and when we left we walked out to a cab and they didn't want to take us as they were reserved and waiting for their customers. We finally got one guy to drive us a couple miles to a bus stop. If you hire a taxi to wait while you go up the mountain and walk around, the cabbie would probably be waiting for two hours for your return.

 

In Yangshuo you can rent a small boat with driver for just the two of you for about $15 for an hour to an hour and half down the Li. Have your wife go negotiate with the local vendors near the river (you'll need to hide and they may renig on the price when they see there is a laowai).

 

We had a "free" cab driver, who hung around for about 3 days, taking us everywhere we went, and waiting for us like that - never paid him a dime. I'm not sure what the deal was, but he said it was some kind of a government tourism function.

Edited by Randy W (see edit history)
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