Coconuts to Crampons: Rice Fields of Guilin

Before actually visiting China, I had this grand image in my mind of a country full of mist shrouded, jagged limestone pinnacles poking up amongst terraced rice fields with quaint villages scattered throughout the countryside. Turns out that this is actually a pretty big country, and there is a lot more to China than just a few rice paddies - so far, we have been to dry and dusty Shanxi and Gansu province, explored the verdant grasslands of Sichuan, and trekked through the amazing high-altitude Tibetan plateau below some of the worlds tallest mountains. I kept wondering, where ARE all these iconic mountains that seem to be in every Chinese painting I have ever seen? Well they certainly aren't in western China.

On the advice of my Mom and every other person who we have talked to, we next headed to Guangxi province and the city of Guilin. This would be our only stop in south eastern-ish China, but sounded like it would finally be the place where we could find the iconic rice fields, pointy cone hats and a backdrop of stunning misty mountains.

Guilin is relatively close to Hong Kong, so we decided to first fly from Chengdu to HK, and then walk through the border back into mainland China where we would catch a high-speed train the rest of the way to Guilin. Although it might seem a bit roundabout, this route had the advantage of reseting and extending our tourist visa since Hong Kong is considered an international destination. With HK's return to China from British colonial rule, the country adopted what they call the "one country, two systems" arrangement. For all intensive purposes HK still operates as its own country, but yet is still part of China - weird. In order to go to Hong Kong, we had to exit through China customs, and then enter through HK customs. To enter back into China we then had to again go through Chinese imigration at the HK-Mainland China border and get a new entry permit - woohoo, we can stay in China for another 60 days!

Best part about the trip was travelling on one of China's high-speed bullet trains - this is definately the fastest train I have ever been on, and one of the few things in China that actually seems to function efficiently. Fast. Quiet. Non-smoking. Friendly staff. Amazing. Definately a far cry from the rattling, smoke-filled, overcrowed, mini-buses in Sichuan.

I like trains!

Over 300 km/h?!

Guilin used to be the primo tourist destination in this area, and a bit of a show-piece of China. Travelling around the city, however, I got the feeling that it was past its prime. Its now a city of over 5 million, full of faded hotels, and has fully embraced the domestic tourism market with associated astronomical prices. Of all the places we have visited in China, this was probably the most overpriced city. Every park, cave, and lake has a huge entrance fee with all of these sites now fully China-fied with electric billboards, artificial coloured mood lighting, and unnecessary kitschy side attractions. There are two nice pagodas, though.

The next day we rented bikes and headed 35km north to a small town in the countryside called Jiāngtóuzhōu. The first part of the trip was a pretty harrowing ordeal, trying to get out of the city - note that in China, it is totally acceptable to a) park your tractor in the bike lane, b) drive the city bus down the bike lane to avoid traffic on the main street, c) drive your car the opposite direction down the bike lane because you made a wrong turn and d) stop and stand in the middle of the bike lane to have a conversation with the gravel delivery truck which just dropped its load of gravel.... in the bike lane.

Once out of the city we got a chance to explore some tiny farming villages, and talk with some of the locals working in the rice fields.

Ploughing the fields with a water tractor?

Flooded rice field.

Lotus root plantation.

Water buffalo just hanging out.

In order to find a place a bit quieter, we next travelled about 2 hours south of Guilin to a small town called Xingping. The guidebook described this place as what Guilin was like 15 years ago - sounded like what we were looking for. The tiny town is right on the Li river and its claim to fame is that the view from the harbour is actually on the back of the Chinese 20 yuan note. Although busy during the day, with the boatloads (literally) of Chinese tour groups disembarking to snap a picture of the iconic sight, once all the buses have left for the day its actually quite a nice place to stay.

The one thing that has taken a bit of time to get used to is the heat - it is really, really hot. The average daytime high is around 34C with close to 100% humidity and most of the time I feel like a walking sweat factory. After being here for a few days, I finally understand the evolutionary purpose of eyebrows!

I have never seen Marie sweat so much!

During our time here we hiked up into some of the surrounding mountains to visit a remote fishing village, and take in the view of the city.

We also took a great day long bike ride to Yangshuo and back through some country roads on a questionable set of rental bicycles. I was a bit worried at first since the ride was about 80km round trip, I only had one set of brakes (the rear didn't work) and Marie's freewheel sounded like it was about to explode every time she stopped peddling. We figured that if anything happened we could probably hitch hike to the nearest town.

Heading through a tunnel with no shoulder or ventilation.

After a quick stop in Yangshuo where we devoured an entire watermelon (great way to re-hydrate), we successfully made it back to Xingping safe and sound (but a little saddle sore, and very sweaty).