Going to Guilin
It was only after I had moved to Shanghai that I had the chance to return to Guilin, this time with the desire of taking time to enjoy the scenery rather than having to do business, however pleasant that first day might have been. In China, I always keep a list of places that I would like to go to, my top travel destinations next time I am lucky enough to get some time off. For a long time, Guilin was number one on the list, and finally, as the next public holiday loomed into sight, Heidi and I arranged to meet in Guilin and travel to nearby Yangshuo. We also looked forward to the pleasure of travelling with our friends James and Stephanie, they of the Bali wedding fame, who were going to fly from Hong Kong to meet us there.
The excitement of going on the trip, spending time somewhere I had wanted to go for a long time, and sharing it with good friends was all quashed pretty well upon arrival. Heidi and I arrived first and decided to take a boat ride out around Guilin, during which time the heavens opened and it poured with rain. Inevitably in China, when it rains you cannot get a taxi for love or money, and when we finally disembarked from the boat, we were stuck. We huddled under cover for a while and then eventually resorted to going into a nearby restaurant to ask them to call us a cab. When we at last made it back to our hotel, Stephanie and James were there waiting for us. Instead of our looking pleased to see them, we just looked cold, wet, and hungry.
Thankfully, the next day the weather had, if not quite cleared, at least paused for breath. It was cool but not raining, and we could go outside without the fear of a deluge to hamper our progress. This was important, because we were booked to take a boat ride from Guilin to the nearby town of Yangshuo, where we were going to stay for the next couple of days. If Guilin is the responsible elder brother of the area, then Yangshuo is the more impudent younger sibling. Guilin has the airport, the infrastructure, some business, and an atmosphere of development, whereas Yangshuo is a backpacker town, where people go to hang out, go rock climbing, and generally enjoy themselves. You can, of course, travel between the two by road, but far more appealing was the four-hour boat ride, which led us and a flotilla of other tourist boats along the Li River through some of the most beautiful countryside in China.
The unique geography of the area is known as a karst landscape, where layers of rock have had water drain through them, wearing away at the rock over a period of time. I have tried to read up on this to explain it better here, but geography was never one of my stronger points, and I still do not really understand how the process has worked to leave the area as it has. But this does not matter; what matters is what you can see when you are there, where you can go, and what you can experience.
In and around Guilin, the elusive erosion process has had two effects: firstly, the creation of very large subterranean caves through which you can wander, enjoying the tasteful lighting that now illuminates the rocks, and secondly, a landscape dominated by the hills I mentioned earlier. Winding its way between the hills is the Li River, and as the boat cruised along, we sat outside just taking in the views and watching the world go by. It is a beautiful place.
The tranquillity of the river was tempered somewhat when we reached Yangshuo. It is a small town near the river, with tight, narrow lanes and bustling people, shops, hotels, and hostels. It has the architecture common to many river towns, with buildings almost on top of each other, leaning over the road, and lanes in which the ground may never see the sun. We were not staying in the main part of the town, however, but had arranged transport to our hotel. I had left all of the logistics up to Heidi, so I had no idea what to expect as we drove higher and higher into the hills. Our hotel turned out to be a boutique place, sitting on top of a small hill overlooking the town and the river. Creepers and vines wound their way around the outside of the building, and we sat peacefully outside in the garden, looking down on the world below.
We had decided to tour around the town and the surrounding area but had not hired a driver to do so. Rather, we had hired a guide, and we were all to ride bicycles. Now this does not sound too difficult a challenge, but having agreed to this, I realised that I had not ridden a bike in about twenty-five years. People always say you never forget how to ride a bike, so I agreed to give it a try and hope for the best. Heidi admitted that she had never ridden a bike at all; she would go tandem with the tour guide.
Back in the town, we picked up our bikes, and I realised that this was the moment of truth. Unfortunately, we had to cycle our way out from the town centre, which meant travelling along roads that had traffic on them. Traffic meant cars – big, fast cars.
James and Stephanie set off behind the tour guide, who had Heidi on the back seat looking fairly relaxed. I brought up the rear, in the vain hope that then no one could see me if I crashed. The first minute or two seem to last almost an eternity as I pedalled furiously in order to keep going straight. The slightest slow-down in my efforts led to me wobbling precariously, and I dreaded seeing any cars stop in front of me, as slowing resulted even more quickly in my swaying, before sticking both legs down as quickly as possible to avoid falling over once and for all. Eventually, though, both the traffic and the buildings thinned out, and we were moving towards the countryside. Big, wide-open highways with few cars, the sun out, and hills and rivers on either side of me – this was a bit more like what I had had in mind. My confidence on two wheels slowly started to creep back up, and I began to relax.
Touring around on the bikes, we made a few stops at the parks, the gardens, and the caves. We looked into the largest and best lit of the caves, following the path through the hollows underground. The effect of the lights, although completely artificial, was a positive one; the lights reflected off the rock pools and cast shadows on the walls of rock that stretched out in every direction. We also had the chance to lay our hands on a tortoise, which was claimed to be over 100 years old. I am no expert on tortoise ageing; I could only tell that he was very large and was not moving very fast. He was certainly old in tortoise years, anyway.
In the evening, we bought tickets to see the show Impressions Liu San Jie. This is another in the series of shows co-designed by film director Zhang Yimou, along with the ones in Hangzhou and Lijiang (and another I have found but not seen in Putuoshan). There may be more; it is difficult to tell. They spring up reasonably often, and it seems to be a growth tactic now: if you have a tourist destination that you want to put on the map, ask Mr Zhang if he can whip up a show to pull the crowds in. This show followed a similar pattern to the Hangzhou one: a performance on the lake, with many participants, through smoke and bright lights, with traditional music and narrative. I thought this one used its people better – at one point the cast lined up in boats and raised and dropped red ribbons, which covered the whole lake, in time to pounding drums. As well, this one had the Yangshuo hills as a stunning backdrop behind the performers – but it had less of a tangible storyline, and it did not feature a giant rain pyramid at the end. I still liked it, though.
The following day we put the bikes aside and used some alternative methods of transport. Firstly, we took rafts down the Li River. James and Stephanie took one and Heidi and I the second. Each raft was crewed by one local guide, punting his way down the river as he had learned at Cambridge. The river was not entirely placid, though, as on a few occasions we had to make our way over rocks, accelerating as we dropped a few feet in quick time. Whilst it would be exaggerating to call the rocks rapids, the tranquillity of cruising down the river was certainly broken, as we had to be careful to hold onto ourselves as well as our possessions.
From the end of the raft ride, we went straight to our next trip: hot-air ballooning. This was something I had been looking forward to, the opportunity to cruise in a balloon over the hills and see the whole landscape down below us. I had been in a balloon once before in my life and had enjoyed it, and my natural predilection for heights encouraged me in thinking this was something that I should do again.
Our balloon pilot soon had us up and running, so that before long we were floating up in the air … but not moving. There was not a breath of wind, and so we were pretty much static. The pilot decided that this would not be a problem, and so he gave the heater another pull, to push us up further. Still no wind, so we went higher … and again … and once more.
By this point we were about 1400 metres up in the air, and the pilot was on the radio to his colleague, saying, “I’ve never been this high before!” As I said, I usually like height – except that this time I did not. We had gone a long way in a short period of time; I was feeling light-headed and not entirely comfortable. The trouble was that there were five of us in what was basically a six-man balloon, and there was nowhere to go, nowhere to move – and not much chance of going down in a hurry.
We found a little wind at 1400 metres, and started floating gently along. Yes, the views were stunning, and it all looked as I had imagined it would, but I was not enjoying it in any shape or form. I felt my breath go from within me, and my heart started pounding. I was hanging on to the bar on the basket as if my life depended on it (which, given the size of the basket, it probably did) while trying not to panic, because all I really wanted to do at that moment was get out. I had not experienced vertigo before, and quite frankly, I will be quite happy if I never experience it again. There are a few photos of our two couples taken at the peak; there are three smiles and one person giving the camera a devil stare and looking quite miserable.
Thankfully, in a little while the wind started blowing a bit harder, and it gave the pilot an excuse to lower the balloon to a more reasonable altitude. At this level I was much happier and started enjoying the ride again in the way that I had hoped to. We floated over a village, and the local kids came running out beneath us, following the balloon and waving. I took some photos and even managed to smile once or twice when someone pointed a camera at me. We touched gently down, and I was back on terra firma. I still hold out that I like ballooning – as long as nobody lets the pilot get carried away.