East or West, Guilin is Best 桂林山水甲天下

Saturday 23rd March, and I arrive in what is reputed to be China's most beautiful place: Guilin. The air is warm and I shed off the coats and jumpers I wore in the north; I'm liking it already. Driving from the airport to the hotel, it's clear spring blossoms early here. Whereas Qingdao is still caught in a shroud of grey, Guilin is an explosion of fresh verdant hills. Buildings rarely reach a fourth story. They sit crouched so green peaks can dominate the skyline, as if the city is bowing down to marvel nature.  

We spent the first evening in the hotel, acclimatising and relaxing. That night also happened to coincide with the global event of Earth Hour, so for sixty minutes the Shangri-la was plunged into darkness. We had booked a long river cruise for the next day, with a start time of 8:20am, so I welcomed the early night.

A view along the Li river

The next morning we met our lovely tour guide, David. Or rather, 'happy David', who greeted us with "you can see my smiling face always." He also warned us that Guilin's weather is "changeable like a baby's face" so we had better bring our raincoats. Luckily for us the rain held off all day. The river cruise was a four hour long journey, sped up a little by the strength of the current. We were aboard a boat for 'international tourists', which was slightly bigger, cleaner and newer than the boats for domestic tourists. All the tour boats are managed by the government, but private (and illegal) tours are available in the form of tiny (and probably unsafe) speed boats.

When you see the scale of the tourist operation being run on the Li river, it becomes understandable why the government wants a monopoly. Roughly 10 million tourists come to Guilin every year, meaning over 27,000 tourists arrive every day. To cope with the huge volume of travellers, the river has an enormous fleet of cruise boats, that set off down the river in a long line. Add in multiple companies vying for business, and you have a recipe for disaster. As it was, the whole journey went by very smoothly; we passed by several farmers using water buffaloes, Nine Horse Hill, and the landscape painted on a 20yuan note!

The boat for domestic tourists

Cat hill - complete with ears and pricked up tail

Chinese tourism at its finest

Just part of the Armada

Multi-coloured cliff face

I had seen plenty of Chinese landscape paintings before the cruise. However, I hadn't realised how much the natural scenery inspired the paintings, as they look more like fantasy than reality. In fact, the real mountains almost look like they are the ones that have been painted! As the surface of the rock is uneven, rainwater can only touch certain parts. Afterwards, a black type of moss grows on the moist areas of the rock, which turns huge strips of rock black as if a brushstroke had been painted down it, contrasting against the original white limestone (click here for a good example of a landscape painting).

Just chillin' in Guilin

Shopping in West Street, Yangshuo

The river cruise's destination is a 'small' village called Yangshuo, that has recently swelled with effects of tourism. Yangshuo can now boast its own Macdonalds and KFC. Happy David told us language schools in the town are thriving, as all the shopkeepers want to learn that extra bit of English, Spanish or Russian that will help them reel in customers.

We stopped in a small traditional tea shop for a while. Having heard that Guilin is named after the osmanthus tree, we decided to try tea made from osmanthus flowers. The shopkeeper prepared the teapot and cups (by splashing a lot of hot water around), and brewed us several glasses. The small yellow flowers smell exotic, almost like mangoes, but when brewed they take on a rather smoky flavour. In the end, we bought a pot of Wolong tea mixed with osmanthus flowers.

We didn't stay long in Yangshuo. It was heaving with people and all there was to do was shop. For those interested, Yangshuo is also home to a famous performance called Liu San Jie, which I've heard is similar to the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony.

Local Guilin Beer

Dinner was a very interesting affair. Happy David told us the local speciality was osmanthus fish cooked in osmanthus wine. Come dinnertime, we set out to try to find it. We stumbled upon an island in the river, accessible by rickety bridge, dotted with little restaurants. We settled on a lively establishment right next to the river. The proprietress took us round the side to where the buckets of live fish were kept. After Will's father chose the biggest fish the restaurant had (unfortunately not osmanthus fish, also known as mandarin fish), we became the restaurant's VIPs for the night. There was no menu, instead, we were led into the kitchen and shown the vegetables they had on offer. The rice was complimentary because we had bought such a big fish, and we had no idea how the fish was going to be cooked. The fish was priced per jin (500g), and the manner of cooking it after the original purchase was free. In the end, the fish turned up as a stew and as a fried spicy dish with tomatoes. The proprietress came over and made us all take shots of some kind of local osmanthus liquor. She kept calling out homemade dishes for us to try for free. I didn't want to offend her so I even ate one of the pieces of tripe she offered me. She also presented us with homemade 'nian gao', which literally means 'year cake', and is a special type of dessert people eat during the new year. I had a great time and ate substantial amounts of fish, the two of which are usually linked in my view. 

The next day was supposed to be a 9 to 5 tour of Guilin's main city sights. We finished by 2pm, after we added in two more stops of our own! It turns out that Guilin is a small-scale city in comparison to the normal Chinese behemoth, or as happy David put it, "Guilin is peanut city, small like peanut." Guilin only has a population of 750,000 people, and there is a joke that if a meteor was to fall and kill any four Guilin residents, two of them would have been tour guides. With that, we prepared to battle the huge groups of cap-wearing, flag-waving, megaphone-blaring domestic tourists. To avoid losing each other in the rush he asked to "stick to each other like sticky rice, sticky rice please." Anyway, here's how the third day went down.

 Elephant Trunk Hill - the symbol of Guilin's scenery

1000 Buddha rock in Fubo Hill

Buddhas here, there and everywhere - Fubo Hill

Reed Flute Cave

More of Reed Flute Cave

The view from Solitary Beauty Peak in the Ming Prince Mansion, in the centre of Guilin

Monkey escaped from the zoo - seven star park

Camel Hill once visited by Bill Clinton- seven star park

Eating the traditional local dish, rice noodles, for lunch

Impromptu inner city river tour on a bamboo raft

Incident with local fisherman - our propellor got caught up in his net

After our record-breaking whistle stop tour of the city, we headed back to the hotel for some down time. While I was on a treadmill overlooking the street below, I saw a man driving a small herd of water buffalo down the road. I love this city.


For dinner we stayed in the hotel and were lucky enough to try the rare Osmanthus (mandarin) fish. It really is delicious!

Looking out from the Shangri-la's Horizon Club at breakfast 

 I suppose the only thing left to do is say - goodbye Guilin!