Guilin (China)

I hope the next hotel we stay at has internet because we spent a good hour walking around Guilin tonight looking for a wireless connection. We found one on our last try so I was able to put up my two previous posts. During our search we went to a fancy hotel (Waterfall Guilin) where they had seated toilets, toilet paper and hand soap, things that I typically take for granted but was overjoyed to see. They also appeared to be having a beauty pageant of sorts in the atrium, with sparklers onstage and confetti. We looked rather uncouth compared to the gussied up guests, but since Peter is obviously a foreigner that works to our advantage because he can fall into the unkempt westerner category who could be a hotel guest. I just look unkempt, apparently, because almost everyone at restaurants and other places we visit try to speak with me in Chinese.

We have seen very few non-Chinese tourists in Guilin. Logistical challenges aside, it's been nice to visit a city that the locals can afford to visit. There were scarely any Thai tourists on Phi Phi Island in Thailand, for example, probably because all but the wealthiest Thais would be priced out of the hotels there. After the cacophony of Vietnam with its millions of motorbikes, the relative quiet of Guilin is quite welcome. They even have large bike lanes and the cars and bikes generally seem to follow the traffic rules.

Today we went to a big park that had a huge, impressive limestone cave and a dismal zoo. I've been somewhat scandalized by the high admission prices to the various sights -- $7.50 for the park and cave, for example. The four hour boat ride from Guilin to Yangshuo is about $70 if you choose the English guide. To my knowledge, most of those prices apply to Chinese nationals, too, and aren't just higher prices for foreigners. (In a number of places we've visited we've thought that we were probably overcharged compared to the locals, but the most blatant case occurred in Cambodia. Our bus stopped at restaurant and one of the locals paid 3,000 riel, or about $.75 for an ice cream bar. Another western tourist then tried to buy the same bar and they wanted $1.50.)

We've been eating well -- eggplant and tofu for lunch and sweet and sour fish and sizzling rice cakes for dinner. I've gotten a little squeamish walking past some of the restaurants near our hotel. Most of them have live fish swimming in front; several have chickens and/or ducks, and one of them has furry animals (I'm not sure what animal it is, but Peter thinks it looks like a weasel). I'm excited to visit Hong Kong again, where they have great Chinese but also superb Asian food in general. It's also easy to order as most of the restaurants have English menus, which allow for a greater selection than my point-to-dishes-of-other-diners technique.