I was elated to visit Guangxi province in southwest China. Guangxi called “Gui” for short is adjacent to Yunnan to the west, Guizhou north, Hunan northeast and Guangdong southeast. It borders Vietnam along the coastline of the Gulf of Tonkin.

It is currently one of the least developed tourist regions, yet has been a travel destination for Chinese, Vietnamese and other Asians for well over twelve hundred years. The area is renowned for its lusty beauty, particularly the karst mountains, those strange yet eerily wondrous peaks that are mostly shrouded in mist year round. This sub-tropical paradise offers an abundant amount of rivers, caves, hot springs, sports activites and culinary regional specialties based on the cuisine of some of the indigenous tribes of the region including the Zhuang, Miao, Dong and Yao peoples.

Meeting the ethnic people at most junctures along my tour, watching them perform traditional songs and dance and purchasing some of their gorgeous handiwork was definitely a highlight for me. River rafting, waterfalls and visiting an art park were part of the excitement I shall not forget. I had a packed agenda during the twelve days of my journey and very little sleep, not that I’m complaining. This trip was one of the most adventurous and awe inspiring in my life as a travel writer. It is already becoming a treasured memory.

Preparation

In preparation for your journey you may wish to pack a little medicine cabinet of items for your safety. Wet wipes and dry wipes are a must as most places have squat toilets and do not provide paper. Stomach, headache, toothache, diarrhea and food poisoning pills are necessary. This region is excellent for hiking, biking and climbing. A good pair of walking/hiking shoes is helpful, sandals and a pair of flipflops to wear in your hotel room as you’ll never find your shoe size in China. A light raincoat and an anti-mosquito aid would suffice during the rainy season - April through September. I had malaria, hepatitis and tetnas shots administered at Schipol which were totally unnecessary and expensive. The other journalists on tour hailed from the USA, UK and India and nobody had any shots.

Transportation in the region

Railway is only an option with a tour guide or translator, however the best way to travel is by coach. Our tour operator used an express bus with a great driver. The bus had airconditioning and that was helpful. They provided us with round the clock bottled water. Taxis are in service 24 hours a day and are cheap, starting at 7.00 yuan (0.70 euro cents) for 2km during the hours from 6.00 to 23.00, then 1.60 yuan per km. Don’t go without a Chinese written destination or you’ll wind up in God-knows- where land!

Entry prices for Sights

Prices vary according to the type of arrangement made. Those quoted in this article may have changed without notice. Since my tour was all inclusive it is advised to get a package deal with your tour host.

Itinerary 10 day tour

I’d like to share my actual itinerary. I highly recommend creating a customized plan that includes a tour guide and translator as you don’t want to get caught in a little village without assistance.

Arrival – Guilin Shanhu Hotel (3 star) in the center of Guilin city

This budget property has a fantastic buffet breakfast with a myriad of dumplings, soups and congees, plus Chinese style breads and dim sum. The rooms are dingy, dark and towels are ripped. Internet doesn’t always work. Staff hardly speak English. Rooms go for 400RMB to a larger type at 560 RMB. Email:glshanhu@21cn.com or phone +86-773 2890113 at your own risk. Beware of Chinese hotel beds. They are like planks of wood atop a hard mattress. What I did to alleviate the straightjacket effect was to put a blanket from another bed on top of the sheet. At least that gave a little cushion to my back.

Next time I would stay at the budget youth hostel Backstreet Youth Hostel because it is clean, funky, the staff speak English and the rooms are simple yet functional. Cost is 35RMB for a dorm bed and 100RMB for a double room. email: guilinhostel@hotmail.com, blog: guilinhostel.spaces.live.com. Most local hotels are similarly priced save for the Sheraton’s and Hilton’s of this world. You can find at least 15 3 star hotels in the city.

I walked around the city, visited some night markets and saw the handicrafts and shawls of the Zhuang people. I tried some hawthorne fruit, a big round ball the color of kiwi skin with a yellowish lycee type fruit inside. Quite nice. A surprise happening around the corner of my hotel was a man-made waterfall of powerful jetstreams cascading down the back of the aptly named, Guilin Waterfall Hotel. Thousands of people jammed the square to watch this nightly gush. The show lasted for fifteen minutes.

The culinary specialities of Guilin include braised turtle, toffee water chestnut, stir fried river snail, osmanthus fish and dragon’s eyes (a dried fruit like raisins with a bitter taste).

Day One – Li River Cruise, Yangshao village & “Impressions of Liu Sanjie” show

The Li River cruise aboard a ramshackle glass bottom boat takes in the limestone karst mountains of every imaginable shape. No wonder for thousands of years inspired artists have lived up river or painted these renowned hilltops, swaying reeds, bending bamboo trees and cute white ducklings wading on the shore. You feel as if you’re looking at a Chinese calligraphic charcoal scroll, visiting the sights of ancient poets and artists. One main sight along the route is the Green Lotus Peak. The 83km journey from Guilin city to Yangshao on the prime river tour takes 4 hours. There are two types of boats, one for foreigners and one for Chinese. There’s a fleet of 180 boats and between 7-8 are rented out daily. www.liriver.org or www.niceview.cn

We ate lunch aboard the boat and watched cormorant fishing whilst grazing water buffalo meandered. The cost pp is 240 RMB.

Yangshuo

At the port in Yangshuo we passed the Green Lotus Peak, a historical and cultural relic of a pagoda. We got off the boat to walk in the picturesque village famed for it’s foreign backpackers. This may be a spot to spend a few nights if you plan to climb the peaks, or bike in the countryside. It’s 65km from Guilin city. I stayed at the lovely 4 star Yangshuo Chinatown Hotel, www.trjhotel.com and email: tangrenjiehotel@sina.com. Located at Guanlian Road #8 right across from the Li River and a swarm of restaurants. We ventured across the road to eat the famed beerfish, a type of cod or catfish brewed in beer then doused with a hoisin sauce and scallions. A woman played an awfully out of tune electric guitar while we ate in the open air and that was part of the mystique.

Impressions Liu Sanjie is a large musical directed by Zhang Yimou who directed the world famous film, Raise the Red Lantern. This fantastic performance with over six hundred actors and actresses is set against the actual landscape of karst mountains on water as backdrop. After that I went with a few of the journalists to have some drinks on the famed West Street, a night market of very high quality. You can find Zhuang brocade, Miao jewelry and costumes of other ethnic minorities of high quality on West Street.

We took the bus there from the outdoor theater. On the way home after drinking a few good beers, I got lost. It was a mere 1km to the hotel but I found a moped driver hopped on the back of the bike and was safely returned to the hotel.

Day Two – Guilin City – HOMA Art Hotel, Elephant Trunk Hill, Brocade Hill and Silver Cave, Inner Guilin River night cruise

It was a four and a half hour bus ride back to Guilin from Yangshao. We stopped at one of the world’s original hotels, HOMA. An art park consisting of 200 sculptures from 100 artists sits in a former swamp and has one of the highest ratings as a Relais et Chateaux listing. This property is not for the financially shy and is worth spending two days with or without a family. www.yuzile.com.

HOMA Art Hotel
HOMA Art Hotel

From there it was another couple of hours to the Silver Cave where you come across a heavily scented aroma of water chestnuts roasting and those in glass bowls filled with water. You can taste the local osmanthus fruit. A small minority village sits across from the cave and is worth walking through. Outside the cave you can have a photo taken with one of the Yao or Zhuang people who pose for a pretty penny. I wouldn’t negotiate price. I find it insulting as this is one of the few ways these people earn hard cash.

The official tour guide of the Silver Cave imposed her impressions upon us through a loud bull horn. Pointing to the gorgeous yet garishly lit in Disneyland colors stalegmites, she boomed, “this looks like a dragon, can you see it?” Our rough and tumble group of journalists cheekily replied, “No, it’s a peacock, no it’s a donkey on a horse, no I see a teddy bear.” The infuriated tour guide abruptly reminded us, “if you don’t have any imagination then make believe you do and you will see a dragon!”. In other words don’t use any imagination at all and follow the script here. Walk 48 meters and shut your mouth.

Elephant Trunk Hill can be seen from above if you hike it or from the riverside on a bamboo raft. The circle in the rocks gives the impression of an elephant drinking water trunk down. The grottos have 800 year old inscriptions that are not translated. Oh well. Nearby is the Brocade Hill. While my legs were wobbly from the climb up Elephant Hill I missed this one. Instead I joked around with the ladies selling cheap toys at the kiosk and bought a wooden fan.

We ate lunch at Xinhua Ting Restaurant. The general filth (compared to western standards) of the kitchen may turn off the finicky traveler, wet floors, compost piled up, no hair nets worn by kitchen staff nor gloves yet that is common. The food was great so never mind the means of preparation! We had local Jasmine fish in sweet and sour sauce, BBQ duck, zucchini and pork and taro with bamboo shoots. Very good.

The night cruise was outlandish yet intriguing. The price per person is around 280 RMB. First off, if you’ve never seen cormorant fishing you may wish you hadn’t, especially if you’re a vegetarian. Like the process the French use on geese to produce pate, the Chinese take a cormorant, tie it’s neck to the choking point, throw it in the water so it catches fish yet doesn’t swallow them and so is forced to throw them up on board for the fisherman. They work at night by firelight.

We passed a mock Arch de Triumph and George Washington Bridge on the River, all nicely lit up in those multi-colored rock n’roll stage lights. Along the river we saw the impressive pagodas of Guilin and witnessed musicians playing lutes. We saw dancers through a pastiche of color. All the while a musician aboard the boat crooned the corniest songs to a Chinese stringed instrument, representing each nation’s worst music. USA: Jingle Bells, Germany: Eidelweiss, U.K: London Bridge and so on. I learned one thing though. If we needed a song to sing in praise of our hosts it was going to be Jingle Bells.

Day 3 – Longsheng Rice Terraces, PingAn village, Jin Keng (Yao) village. Overnight at Grand Hotel Longsheng

Longsheng Rice Fields
Longsheng Rice Fields

The absolute highlight was visting the Longsheng Rice terraces, 87km from Guilin. Known as Dragon’s teeth it was very misty and slightly drizzly. It’s far better to go during a dry season when you can see for miles. On top of the mountain trail we could see the undulating terraces and made fresh coffee with the Yao village woman who ground soy bean into a paste with a mortar then churned a soy milk, crushed the beans and served up a distinctly flavored brew. It took a good 35 minutes climb up the mountain. We took a little minibus to the Yao village of PingAn, 17km away. We dined at the PingAn Guest House pinganhotel@hotmail.com where apparently a Dutchman living nearby has been craving peanut butter and bitter ballen. We spotted a sign in the hotel. It was by far the best healthiest lunch we had until this point.

Dutch Snacks
Dutch Snacks

Driving another hour we wound up in the remote and beautiful Yao village of Jin Keng. Here the families live in large wooden alpine like homes as extended families. The people are poor and agricultural eeking out a living. I met a woman selling Yao jewelry and brocades. I had a feeling about her and did not want to insult her by negotiating a lower price for the brocade. Of course, that is expected however when I paid her 100RMB for the hand woven wonder she began to weep. Out poured her story on my shoulder. “I have two children and this will last us for three whole months. We can buy food and store it. We don’t earn enough from agriculture and the government doesn’t help too much. We sell these crafts but only when tourists arrive.”

I felt proud that I could do a little something in this woman’s life.

We stayed at the Long Sheng Hotel in Longsheng County. The first stop in the lift was on the 3rd floor, a restaurant where women were sweeping huge buckets of goop into a pail. Where literally hundreds of people were jammed into a room. A standard room costs 240 RMB or 540 for a double. The concrete walls with drippy humidified water marks and assorted plumbing features made the room creepy. There were condoms for sale. Just in case!

The entertainment that evening was as good as it gets. We walked the square and saw hundreds of locals dancing in unison to western inline ballroom music. Me and a couple of cohorts zigzagged the line and did interactive disco. Just to add some spice to the monotony of the movement. The people were laughing at us and we all had a blast. To top off the evening, we saw an adult metal swing set in the window of a bakery. In we went. Next thing, beers and nuts are being served to us. At the adjacent swing set two friendly fashionable Chinese ladies tried communicating. We drove some 3+ hours to get to this hotel from the Yao village. It made no sense. We would have been better off staying in the ethnic village in the mountains.

Day 4 – Sanjiang Wind & Rain Bridge Miao Village, Dong song and dance performance, Tower of the Dong with special welcome dinner

Dong Bridge

The magnificent Fengyu Bridge in Chenyang knocked our socks off. Five pagoda like towers that make up the bridge cross the countryside to the Dong village. Hawkers selling original Dong, Zhuang and Yao brocades and children’s outfits are worth the pretty penny. Atop the village is a clearing and a communal house, so common in China. It’s here we saw the Dong perform their traditional song with bamboo flutes and dance routine. We purchased Zhuang embroidery balls from local grandmothers.

The purity of the natural environment make for fabulous biking and hiking tours. A small cafe in the village Yang’s Guesthouse posts a sign from Leiden. Mr. Yang, owner and fluent English speaker says the Dutch are the leading tourists in this particular village as they like to take “natural tours”. yangsguesthouse@hotmail.com He serves up a mean latte.

We were privvy to a huge treat in the evening. The Meal of 100 Families welcoming dinner at another Dong communal site, replete with tower was staggering in it’s grandiosity. Tables for 100 persons were laid out with at least five dishes per table. The idea was to try every dish by walking around and drinking with each person at the table. The formality meant that no one left there sober. The Dong people sang us a folkloric tune. In response we were asked to croon back. At a loss for an internationally recognized number I came up with one I heard on the Guilin River night cruise. “Jingle Bells”. Onstage looking down at the revelers, me and a girlfriend from the tour belted out the silly Christmas number. Everyone cheered and applauded.

Yet the best aspect of this day was staying at the no frills wooden Dong Village Hotel.

Don’t get drunk without a flashlight otherwise you might fall into the river. No hot water nor heat made for a sound nights sleep under the duvet. All you could hear was the rustling of the bamboo trees and reeds blowing in the wind.

Dong Village Hotel (0772) 8582421, dvhcy@yahoo.com.cn ) opposite the stone bridge Bed around 15RMB. Wood smelling Dble room with great balcony around 30 (but down to 10 in low season). Some English is spoken there. Dinner for 15RMB, better to go to Mr. Yang’s.

Day 5 – Miao minority village, Chang Liai horse fighting, Liuzhou city center

We drove 4 hours to arrive at Lanpou port in Rongshui. Here we crossed over the Beijang River (30 minutes) to Goutan village by river raft arriving at the Miao village.

Here we witnessed a live festival of greeting the Miao people and dancing to celebrate the spring harvest. The Miao welcome foreigners with a “Ya Ooh” for good luck sung 3x in a row. We dined on traditional food in an open air room above the square. The best part was when the ladies amongst us had to sit on a cushion whilst the Miao boys tried pushing us off our butts. We didn’t know what we were doing or why and it was one of the most hysterically funny bits on the tour. Especially when we hit rock bottom and plonged to the ground with a bash! I didn’t stay for the horse fighting at Chang Liai. Although customary and as common as human boxing, cock, bull or dog fighting, I just couldn’t abide by the philosophy of watching horses kick each other in the face.

On the road some 3+ hours to the awful industrial town of poisonous smells in Liuzhou. People were covering their mouths at every turn. The grey dust reminded me of Warsaw like block houses of same color. Brick, tobacco and steel industries created a noxious cocktail. Our group started a Miao chant, 3x “get us out, get us out, get us out”.

Located halfway between Guilin and Nanning, we stayed at a wonderfully modern hotel in the center of the city. Liuzhou Grand Hotel at No. 2 Longcheng Road had wifi. www.lzgm.com We strolled to the shopping malls, night markets, food stalls and cafes surrounding us. The general street life and vibrancy dispelled any negative first impressions. Liuzhou is noted for it’s noodles with snails, preserved bamboo in both sour and spicy flavors and it’s stone quarries and rosewood.

Day 6 – Stone Garden of Liuzhou City, Guangxi Xinhua Hotel

At 343, Pingshan Avenue in the city we stopped at China’s largest stone garden. www.lzssw.com. Stone is one of the city’s claims to fame. Shapes and sizes in every variety are reclaimed, shined and used as good luck omens, pieces of art and landscape design throughout China. We made a pitstop for lunch at the Shangau Hotel in Nanning. The remainder of the day and halfway through the night was spent traveling to Detian Falls on the Vietnamese border. It took us around 6 hours with a few stops.

Day 7 – Detian Falls is a magnificent series of waterfalls on the Vietnamese border in the town of Daxin. It is the second largest trans-national waterfall in the world after Niagra Falls towering 200m. Many tourists from Vietnam and throughout China get married here. We took a 45 minute bamboo floating raft towards the center of the falls, a dreamlike vision. There is only one hotel here, Detian Falls Tourism Hotel. If you’re lucky some of the rooms overlook the waterfall.

Detian Waterfall

Onwards by bus to the Tongling Gorge www.tonglingu.com or mail tonglingdxg@163.com. It is also known as the Grand Canyon. 45 minutes later we walked down the path to the bottom of the canyon. No one told us it would take that long. We were told a bus would be waiting for us at the bottom of this divine cave filled with colorfully lit stalegmites and stalegtites. After a 45 minute walk into the depths the elderly on our tour couldn’t walk further. The guide then informed us we’d have to walk all the way back up, there was no bus. Another hour later we reached the pinnacle all wet with spray and sweat as we passed through a Jurassic forest with prehistoric vines and trees.

Later in the day we ventured further into the wondorous Gulongshan Canyon to go white water rafting www.jxgls.com or gulongshan@sohu.com.

The guides said we’d be going on a boat ride. Little difference did it make, boat ride, raft ride. Who cared? This two hour adventure allowed us to be part of the awe-inspiring caves and feel the natural wonders of this part of China. A definite highlight. Prices were not given so write an email in advance and make sure to be with professional rafters.

Day 8 – Guangxi Medicinal Botanical Garden including lunch, Farewell dinner

The drive of 4.5+ hours into Nanning was tiring. We arrived at the unique botanical gardens where medicinal herbs and remedies, studied by generations of Zhuang and Yao people are culled. Over 5000 plants and bushes in the garden have a medicinal value. Our organic lunch was made with several of the herbs direct from the garden.

Child

The Transcentury Hotel, Nanning at No. 111 Minzu Avenue, was by far the best hotel of our tour. The farewell dinner was an amazing banquet of the freshest fish and seafood, vegetables and all sorts of meats and poulty. mail century@nn.gx.cninfo.net or ksjhotel@126.com Rooms start at 968RMB for twin accomodations up to 8888RMB for the Presidential suite.