Weirdo Mountains and PVC Pipes: What They Have in Common

We got to Guilin and were picked up at the airport by the taxi the hostel arranged for us. This is the first time my parents arranged this and it is nice. Usually we battle our way wherever we have to go on local transport, but this many weeks into our trip my mom says she is getting too old for all that.

The exterior of the hostel was a bit unpromising with the gambling house on the bottom floor and the crumbling stairs. It was so late we just grabbed our key and went to bed. In the morning after looking around a bit the hostel proved to be pretty nice. The rooms have air conditioning, there is a pool table, it is clean and we found where they were hiding the western style toilets. I HATE squat potties, or as my dad calls them, “cat toilets”.

After breakfast we took some buses out to the Reed Flute Cave. I never found out why it is called that. Perhaps it is because of all the vendors outside selling noisy plastic whistles. It should probably be called Over Excited Rainbow Cave. That’s because practically every surface in the cave is illuminated with a rainbow of fluorescent neon lights. All of the formations have fruity names like “A centipede frightened by a magic mirror”, “A bumper harvest of melons and fruits”, and “The crystal palace”. The crystal palace is a large chamber with a lake and a photo booth and a large row of stalactites and stalagmites backlit with in a harsh blue. We saw several people putting their hands, feet and trash in the water. One girl filled her water bottle in the lake and then drank from it! Near the exit of the cave we entered what I will call the bat cave as it had several mid-sized bats swooping here and there. After the cave we took the bus back to town and stopped for lunch at a Pizza Hut where they served excellent Oreo milkshakes.

The next day we went on a bamboo raft trip down the Li River. We were picked up at our hostel by a mini bus and taken to a section of river south of town. After fending off the vendors trying to sell us squirt guns and flowered headbands we set sail in our “bamboo” (PVC pipe) boat. The mountains are some of the most famous in China. They come in a wide variety of unusual shapes like spikes, columns, camel humps, goat horns, and one I thought was shaped like a hot air balloon rising out of the river. The shoreline was covered with long fingers of bamboo. It made me wish there were some pandas around. During the trip we also saw water buffalos on the shore and when we stopped for a break we saw a large herd of them go into the water to cool off and go poo. Back on the water two families squirted us with river water (with its buffalo poo) and looked shocked when we all screamed at them to stop. The rest of the ride was thankfully uneventful.

At the end of the cruise we took motorcycle cabs down the mountain and then a couple of buses back to the hostel. Along the way we stopped in Yangshuo for dinner. Pizza and ice cream again! My chocolate milk came with a small cup of sugar syrup to sweeten it with!

The next day we went on an exploration of the city. After walking around all day we went on a nighttime cruise of the 2 rivers and 4 lakes. The whole town was lit up just like the Reed Flute Cave. There were pavilions with musicians playing traditional instruments and one where there were fake musicians pretending to play instruments. The cruise took us past the twin pagodas of the sun and the moon. These thankfully had no flashing neon lights. By the time the cruise was over the buses had stopped running so we had to walk all the way back to the hostel. We arrived exhausted and drenched in sweat.

We are staying here until we go to Hong Kong – my mom says HK is like Disneyland and I will love it. Actually, there IS a Disneyland in HK! I wonder if my mom will surprise me with that?