Tuesday, 3 October 2006
Guangxi Province, China (XingPing, YangShuo & Guilin)
Posted at Tuesday, 3 October 2006, 12:13 AM, Categorised as Backpacking Trip
Day 1
6.15 pm Depart from Shenzhen to Guilin by train, hard bed for about RMB 240. The train has 3 level with the lowest being the most expensive and the highest being the cheapest. The train ride is very comfortable with nice clean pillow and cosy quilt. There is free hot water available for your Instant Mee and hot beverages.
Train comfortable hard bed
If you are tired of sleeping, there is always chairs along the walkway for you to catch a chat with the locals.
Day 2
14 hours later, reached Guilin of Guangxi Province. Take an express bus, just outside the train station to YangShuo for RMB 15. The journey takes 1.5 hours. From Yangshou, took a mini bus to Xing Ping for RMB 5.5. Xing Ping is a small town along the Li River. XingPing town has the best scenic stretch of the Li River. In XingPing town, we decided to try homestay at a small village opposite XingPing town.
Our homestay motel. Staying with the locals allow us to learn more about their culture and lifestyle.
About 4pm, we took bamboo boat cruise down stream to the fishing village. The cruise cost RMB 60 for 3 person. Visited an ancient fish village and a Chinese temple. Nothing new but for the view of an ancient building structure accompany with the background of never-ending hills and mountains is definitely breathtaking. At night we have dinner while admiring the great view of the hills as the sun sets.
Bamboo River Cruise down the Li River
Some ancient chinese building
Day 3
Wake up early for the up stream river cruise to catch the sun rise (RMB 120 per boat). First stop, sun rise platform. There is already a lot of photographer at the platform waiting for the sun to rise. We are very lucky as there is a group of photographer who hired a few local boatman as model for their shot. Ha ha picture perfect.
Photography Platform. Need to pay to use the jetty.
Sun rise. Picture perfect.
The boat trip continues up stream up to Yandi. This cruise is the best river cruise, it covers the most scenic stress of the Li river. After lunch, we went to try the wild water rafting RMB 120 per person. White water rafting in Kota Kinabalu is so much better but for RM 60 what more should I expect?
At about 6pm, we climb up a hill beside the XingPing jetty to get a top view of the area. The climb is easy and it only takes 30 minutes to reach the top. I waited for the sunset, it is definitely the best sun set I ever seen.
Thanx to 2 Japanese photographer, I does not have to climb down in darkness but once I reached the jetty, only I realised that I am in big trouble as the ship across the river stop operating as early as 7pm. Instead of RMB 1, I had to pay RMB 10 for a small bamboo rake to take me across the river. Suddenlly I realised that the decision of staying inside a small village opposite XingPing town is a big mistake. We have to bare with the over charged home cook meal, pay for the ferry across the river and there is absolutely nothing to do at night. Next time I would stay at XingPing town instead.
Day 4
Today we wake up late and took the public bus back to YangShuo for RMB 5.5. The rest of the day is spend exploring YangShuo town. We love the west street the most. West Street is a very touristy street with lots of western restaurant, handicraft shops, and lots of nightlife activities.
Day 5
Wake up really early for the upper yulong river cruise. We have to cycle to upper Yulong river so we rented a mountain bicycle for RMB 10 per bike. At upper yulong river, we took man powered bamboo rake to explore the river. The trip is boring cause the rake is going turtle slow. The trip ended with a lovely village lunch.
Man powered bamboo river cruise. Damn slow.
We then cycle back to our motel and catch the bus back to Guilin. At 8 pm we wave bye bye to the beautiful Guangxi Province as our the train left Guilin back to Shenzen.
American breakfast at the train. Reached Shenzhen about 12 pm.
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