Guilin/Yonghsuo

We headed off to dinner upon our late arrival in Guilin and it was a taste of things to come. The only place open was serving lackluster food on dirty, saran wrapped plates.

We arrived late at night so our first glimpse of the scenery was the next morning. We hired a cabbie (who spoke no English) to drive us to the river and down to Yongshuo.

Along the main road was pretty desolate: crumbling buildings still inhabited, the occasional market stands, fires burning who-knows-what on the sidewalk. However, once we turned off the highway to reach the river we discovered even more local flare. The villages were tiny with cows, birds, children, dogs wandering the streets. The dozens of adults surrounded the cars, one man in particular being charged with standing in front of vehicles in order to stop them for money.

Having seen the gentleman perform his trick on the bus in front of us, I wasn't surprised when we were stopped. Luckily our Mandarin-speaking driver shooed him away. But as we began to drive again there was a slight bump, followed by high-pitched cries..We thought we had hit a child at first but it turned out to be a little puppy. He had run under our car when were stopped and had his legs run over. Jacquie took a peak at him from out our window and the damage appeared survivable. I worried over what the owners would do but they found the event especially amusing and laughed at the puppy's squirming. Jacquie and I were less enthused...

But we finally reached the river and hoped the little boat with the blue overhang.
The view was beautiful, even without a hint of sunlight.
Even the cold was manageable, until we turned back. I attempted to brace myself by wearing 5 pairs of tights, one pair of leggings, two pairs of socks, a pair of jeans, two long sleeve shirts, 2 sweaters, one turtleneck, a sweatshirt, and a jacket. I could hardly move and still couldn't feel my limbs by the time we reached the shore.

Next on our forced tour was a theme park named Shangri-La. I was pleased upon arrival because I needed to visit the restroom. Of course, it was eastern. I was definitely wary about it and even my apprehension proved to be grossly underestimated.

But that wasn't the only fail we got out of Shangri-La. Upon getting a closer look we decided this was not where we wanted to spend our limited Guilin time. It was dripping in Chinese tourists and impossibly disney-fied (a theme amongst all Chinese tourist attractions, as you'll later see). After our attempts to charade our displeasure failed we conceded and got on the boat. We rode down the brightly dyed stream and listened to the tour guide explain something to the boat in Chinese.
When we emerged from a corner we were surprised to be thrown back into Ancient China! Imagine our shock when real live natives sprung from the stage wearing Tarzan outfits to dance and pretend to throw things at us.
Once we landed ashore we were paraded through a building of Ancient Chinese wares. Lots of employees were stuck posing at sewing machines and around fake fires. Each and every one was asleep on their equipment, heads jolting upright only when we stood directly in front of them. Here are some indigenous people's waking up from their nap:
Next was Silver Cave, which I had super high hopes for. The rocks were polished and brightly lit, but I still think it was one of our better stops.
Next we arrived at Yonghsuo. Our guide hoped to take us to KFC and then back to the hotel but we politely declined and ran off to explore and get some real dinner.
It turned out to be another impressive failure as we got lost trying to find the town center and couldn't find any place that looked appetizing. We did, however, see a lot of live chickens.
It was actually a really good start to what would come to be known as ADV 2010.