I bought a bunch of travel books on China and read them before I left. I brought two for China: Lonely Planet and Adventure Guide: China, by Hunter Travel Guides. Although Lonely Planet is indispensable for basic knowledge, one of the things I don’t like about it is that it seems to give equal weight to everything. You have to wade through a lot of dense text to find things that are recommended, and even then, you can‘t tell how one thing stacks up against another. As a result, it’s hard to make choices on sites to visit just from reading LP. Adventure Guide: China is the opposite…kind of a Rick Steves’ version of China, highlighting only specific cities and what the author considers the best of the lot. AGC also listed some interesting information I hadn’t found in other guides: websites for cycling tours and other light adventure ideas.
I had also heard that a lot of hard-core, or perhaps just seasoned, travelers, don’t travel with guide books at all. They may read them beforehand (or not), but prefer to pick up information from others on the road as they go along. Not being that daring, I try to go over areas a few days before we get there, usually as I’m booking the next hostel or hotel, but lately, I’d been skimming because the travel is wearing me down.
I came into Guilin with some background, but few concrete ideas. I’d heard that Guilin itself is not that interesting, but Yangshuo, a smaller city about 65 km south, was the place to go. As I looked at the possibilities in the books and the brochures, I decided we’d go to Reed Flute Cave and Elephant Hill for our one day in Guilin. I thought we’d try the bus, as LP told us there were two buses that go to Reed Flute Cave, and one of them was free. Trouble was, none of the clerks at the hotel had any idea where those bus routes were. Kinsey and I went over to McDonald’s for lunch, and I watched the buses going by, but none were the numbers we needed. Defeated by that idea, I decided to go for a taxi as I had noticed a fair number of available taxis zooming by.
We got a taxi fairly easily, and by showing the driver the picture of the cave, he understood where to take us. Nineteen yuan later, we pulled up at a fairly deserted parking lot at the cave. We bought our tickets and took a short hike to the cave entrance. A few Chinese tour groups were hanging out in the waiting area. I told Kinsey we’d probably be in a Chinese tour again, but she didn’t mind.
A few minutes later, the doors opened and we were all let into the cave. It was an interesting experience to see how the Chinese culture differs from ours. The big draw to the cave is that all of the stalactites, stalagmites, flowstones, columns, and other cave phenomena were lit up with colored lights. Caves in the United States National Park system are not allowed to have colored lights anymore--(we learned this at Timpanogos Cave in Utah over the summer, which has one of the only exceptions, one red light on the “heart” of Timpanogos). On the one hand, the colorful stalactites and stalagmites are interesting, but on the other hand, they look rather kitschy and fake. Also, although I couldn’t understand the Chinese guide, I don’t think there were any admonitions to not touch things in the cave. People leaned on things, touched them, brushed by them without any thought. It might have been because the cave was probably already pretty damaged--it had been used during the war as an extensive shelter for residents and I’m sure no one worried about not touching things then--but it was an interesting contrast to me.
After our 40 minute tour, we exited the cave and pondered the best way to get back to the city. We wandered back to the parking lot and tried getting the two taxis there to take us back into Guilin, but they all claimed they couldn’t take us. Finally, I decided we should wait and accost the next driver dropping people off. Several taxis pulled in, but the drivers were waiting for the occupants to come back to the car so they could drive them closer to the cave. Were we the only dolts who had walked? Apparently everyone else knew better. I tried to get a couple of drivers to come back to pick us up after they had dropped their charges off, so I knew someone would eventually get back to us. A few minutes later, a taxi driver reappeared.
Once we got in, I showed the driver our little brochure with a picture of Elephant Hill on it. I pointed to it, and he understood that’s where we wanted to go. He started the car and took off. Just a few minutes into the ride, he pulled out two laminated sheets of photos of Guilin tourist sites. He pointed to Elephant Hill and then he pointed to a large tour boat. I shook my head and said no, and then pointed back at just Elephant Hill. He pointed at the tour boat again and made motions about it going past Elephant Hill. I kept saying no, but then I caught sight of another picture on his card--a small bamboo boat with a few chairs on it. I had read on the internet the previous night that someone had taken a boat like this by Elephant Hill. It sounded fun, so I pointed to the smaller boat. The driver vigorously shook his head and pointed to the larger boat. I pointed to the smaller boat. He shook his head again. We went through this routine repeatedly, and by then, I couldn’t tell if he was telling me the small boats were unsafe, the small boats weren’t running, or he just wanted to take me to the larger tour boat.
By this time, he had pulled up into a parking lot and I thought we were at Elephant Hill. We started to get ready to get out, when he motioned again for me to take the big boat. By this time I was a little exasperated, but I thought I could check out what was going on and then make a decision, so I finally relinquished and told him we could go to the bigger tour boat. I thought it would just be a short distance away; however, the driver started to go too far down the street, so I told him to take me back to Elephant Hill. There was no deterring him, and in a couple of minutes, we ended up at the dock for the larger boats. I tried to get him to take us back, but that wasn’t working, so I got out of the cab and started looking at the river, trying to determine if there were smaller boats out there or not. He chased us around trying to get us to the ticket line. By now, however, we were so far away, I could not see Elephant Hill or anything near it. Finally, I gave up and decided to just take the larger tour boat, although I was very concerned because now we were too far to walk back to our hotel, and it was getting late enough that I thought it would be hard to get a taxi. So I drew a picture of a taxi and a man and showed it to our driver. I pointed to the ground, meaning “here.” Then I asked him, “How much?” He seemed to understand and wrote 20 yuan. So I bought tickets--and he received a 10 yuan kickback--so I knew then what his motivation had been. If I had been able to speak Chinese, I would have told him I’d have happily given him 10 yuan ($1.50) to take me where I really wanted to go.
Kinsey, however, had followed the whole escapade in the backseat and was thoroughly disgusted. She had wanted to take the bamboo boats too, and the tour boat did not sit well with her. So now I was stranded on a boat with a disgruntled daughter.
The tour boat took forever and was pretty dull. The only nice parts were seeing some of the locals along the river, washing clothes, fishing, and quite a few were actually swimming. Elephant Hill was nice, but watching it from the boat just made me wish we’d gotten out when we’d had the chance. There was a trail to the top, and yes, there were bamboo boats there too.
Eventually the boat ride ended, although, I was concerned because we were dropped off at a different spot from where we started. It seemed like a residential area, so there wasn’t much traffic. We tried to poach a taxi, but all of the drivers were diligently waiting for specific customers. After a couple of minutes, our taxi driver showed up, and I was at least grateful that we weren’t stranded. I gave him the address to our hotel, and somewhere during the drive, I let him know that we still would have preferred to take the bamboo boats.
In the end, I don’t suppose I was really so mad…just chagrined at the way I had learned my lesson. Later that night I was re-reading my Lonely Planet, getting ready for Yangshuo, when I came upon the first few paragraphs about Guilin:
“When it comes to Guilin and its stunning karst topography, there’s good news and there’s bad news.
“The good news is the beauty of this scenic city…
“The bad news is that rapid economic growth and a booming tourist trade have made it a challenge to enjoy Guilin’s charms….Touts (some persistent) appear at every turn, with many taxi drivers now aggressively in on the game.” And, under Dangers & Annoyances, the first line was “Taxi drivers can be among the most aggressive touts in the city.”
Lonely Planet got that one right. Be careful in Guilin.
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