After 2 months in China, I’d only visited cities. This weekend, finally, it was time to get to the countryside and where better to start than somewhere so beautiful they put it on their money?!
Hard Sleeper Trains
Everyone I know who has been to Guilin got an internal flight. Sadly, after trying from every different angle, my friend and I decided this simply could not be afforded so we chose the 24 hour hard sleeper train instead. On informing others of this decision, they looked shocked and amused and nearly all of them wished us good luck. There were horror s
tories of the conditions of the trains and nighttime behaviour of other passengers… well Cat and I had a lovely time. We packed our picnic fit for kings (because everyone knows when you’re in for a long ride you need food in abundance), a bottle of wine, music, books, films and off we went. We had been informed that the lowest bunks would the best choice because you can actually sit up and man, was that good advice. Each section has 6 beds, 3 on each side. You receive a pillow and a duvet and in the carriage there is access to hot water and two loos. What more could you need?
We arrived at Guilin North Station at about 5.30am where we hopped on a 2 hour coach to Yangshuo where we then got a small 1 hour bus to Xingping.
Xingping
Xingping is an ancient town just north of the larger town of Yangshuo. It is here that you find the scene on the back of a 20 Yuan note. It is an incredibly beautiful place. The main town area is quite basic and can be compared to any other small town in China, however there is also the ancient town. This has lovely cobbled streets, many little stalls for shopping and quirky restaurants and cafes. It is all quite commercial but when it’s done with class, we can forgive that!
Our first port of call was the 20 Yuan note scene; this was a short walk from the town centre. Being there out of season was great. Although we didn’t have the best weather, it wasn’t too crowded. Chinese tour buses did arrive in throngs everyday but it wasn’t too bad, I can only imagine this becomes much, much worse further into spring. 
Due to our 24 hour train ride that day, after a bit of walking around, we had dinner and got an early night. I say that like it was a choice but there was actually very little going on in the town after 7pm! We went out for dinner at 7.30 and it was dead! I can only hope this was because it was a Thursday and out of season but something tells me that might not be the case.
Our hostel was called This Old Place or 老地方. It was recommended to me by a friend and was just fab: incredibly cheap, lovely wooden Chinese decor and a common area with games and a bar where you can make new friends in true hostel-fashion.
Trekking to The Fishing Village
Day two was a day of trekking. We started by hiking to The Fishing Village which the internet assured us would take 1.5 hours each way and would be an easy path to follow. This was not the case. To start with, the step by step guide, the map and Google maps were all wrong. Everything was incredibly inaccurate and as a result we spent 2 hours getting lost before we actually found step one! It was frustrating but we ended up walking through a village and past ancestral shrines and all sorts of local things we wouldn’t have otherwise experienced. The real trek was also quite something; it starts as one would expect a moderately hard hike to start, albeit somewhat steep. However, the path became less and less obvious, more and more treacherous and more and more steep. On reflection, we should not have followed that route just the two of us. Had one of us hurt ourselves it would have been bad news. Anyway, we finished successfully: sweaty, exhausted but happy. The views were just beautiful and we were right in the thick of nature. The hike took us about 4 hours overall. 
Laozhaishan – Bird’s View Pavilion
After a few hours of recuperation (where we astonishingly did our homework!) we set off with a bottle of wine in our rucksack to climb Laozhaishan (shan means mountain) to watch the sunset from the Bird’s View Pavilion. The foot of the mountain is basically right outside the hostel and it is advertised as having steps all the way up, hence why we thought some wine at the top would be acceptable. The reality wasn’t quite so simple… I’m sure there was once steps going all the way up, but they have been very badly maintained and therefore there were some 
really tricky bits. On reaching the top after a few near death experiences, we decided that the descent should not be performed tipsy… we could just imagine the Daily Mail’s headlines: “British girls die attempting to drunkenly climb mountain”.
The view from the top was just breathtaking and we joined a group of young Chinese to watch the sunset.
Ming Palace Hostel
The next morning, we woke up early again to catch a bus to Guilin city. Roads in China are a bit shabby around the edges and so every now and then you’re thrown out of your seat as the driver tackles the biggest pot hole you’ve ever encountered. This makes sleeping whilst travelling a somewhat stressful affair.
3 hours later, under the hottest sun I’ve yet experienced in China, we arrived in Guilin. We found a bus that would take us to our hostel, allowed a few strangers to take photos with us (a very common occurrence for any foreigner in China) and got ourselves safely to Ming Palace Hostel where we would spend our final night. As suggested, the hostel is right next to the Ming Palace. It’s probably now one of my favourite hostels. The location is very central but also fairly quiet. The bar and common area is great fun, good drinks at the bar and it was very cheap. The staff were also some of the most helpful I’ve encountered with one girl at reception allowing me to use her personal mobile phone to ring my UK bank. Oh, and you can write on the walls; what’s not to love?!
We wondered around Guilin all day: the river, lakes, parks and the main high street. The high street area is just great. I highly recommend walking along the river at promenade time (around 5pm) and then heading for food at the street food market just off the main high street. 
Having not yet received our next installment of student loan, we found that the fees to enter all the parks and tourist attractions were actually very overpriced. Many had student discounts which made them just about acceptable but it was a shame.
After a fun dinner in the town, we headed back to our hostel for happy hour where we made some pals. With them we went exploring and found an abandoned temple that you can wonder about (although I’m not certain we were supposed to be there). We then joined the nighttime fishermen and sat by the river chatting until about 4am. At 4.30am we caught a taxi for our return train journey.
27 hours later we were in our beds in Ningbo for an hour’s sleep before our 9am lesson.
Guilin has definitely been my favourite trip so far, but being an Oxfordshire country girl I’m bound to prefer the countryside to the huge Chinese cities. If you are planning on doing Guilin, try to go outside of the main tourist season and don’t feel you have to do an organised tour. You can pay 500 Yuan (over £50) for an organised tour of everything we did, and that doesn’t even include entrance. We spent less than 100 Yuan on buses and getting around; the transport system is very comprehensive and easy to access. You may be accosted by people holding a yellow board with a town’s name on in red writing -in China you are trained to think that people who come up to you are duping you for money- these yellow-board people are not frauds, they are running the local buses! Guilin to Yangshuo is 30 Yuan, Yangshuo to Xingping is 20 Yuan and Xingping to Guilin is 30 Yuan -if you’re paying more than you have been scammed. I would also suggest that 2 nights in Xingping is unnecessary; I would have liked to have another night in the Ming Palace Hostel.
Guilin is a beautiful area but beware of tourists and weather; when my parents went it was so misty they literally could not see a thing.
So now I’ve had two days at home before heading off to meet some Paris friends in Hangzhou tomorrow! More treks and hopefully some KTV are coming my wayyy.
