"Gui lin shan shui jia tian xia" a Guilin Travel Page by l_joo

A mistake
It was all because a mistake in rushing at the end by fatefully we have to settle at Guilin. However since I have been to this location, I will build a good page for you.

Visiting Guilin is something very proud in Chinese but the meaning is totally different for foreigners. Foreign tourists couldn’t understand why so many local Chinese tourists visiting Guilin everyday, the reason is because this city has long been regarded as the best of all landscaping and scenery in the whole world by most Chinese writers from the past. For this reason, too many visitors generating too much pollution and in the end Guilin completely changed. The moment we saw Guilin, it is already a distasteful legend.

Completely polluted with heavy litters, rivers not to mention were ‘no eye see’. Not the Guilin that we imagine from the book. The moment we visit Guilin, we are looking at modern flat architectures cemented together with the natural Karst landscape. Tourists have no idea what to do but staring at each other. It's more like a modern shopping place full of restaurants, supermarkets, electronic shops blended into the original Karst landscape. Karst was a word explained by a local Chinese who can speak English, he told me this kind of landscape was called Karst. I’m not a geologist, I just enjoy building VT pages, don’t ask me what is that.

Even though I was already told that Guilin is overrated but how overrated they meant by overrated? I have to see it with my own eyes to believe. We came here thinking of seeing the beautiful landscape of Yangshuo but already by mistake we had to settle at Guilin. Okay no problem, we asked one local Guilinese, they told us this very modern crowded city that we are stepping on is already Guilin and the river over there not far away is the river that books always talk about and then a weird-shaped big stone beside the river is the famous elephant nose something and something. All these that we are looking at are the legendary Guilin, okay I see.

We still bearing a slight hope to believe maybe somewhere after a short drive we can see something beautiful. So, the next day we bought the one day trip cost only RMB15.00 by bus taking us to six tourist spots. Three of us with slight hope hopping on the mini bus and then in about 5 minutes we come to the first spot. It was actually two corners away from our hotel, the mini bus parked beside a bus stop, then the tour guide began to shout, okay guys please come down, this is the first one. We have to get down the bus, to see a big Karst stone being cemented by modern buildings, it has a label written with many words but we were in no mood to even step closer. Furthermore we can see a big gate to collect entrance fee RMB40. From outside we already can see clearly the original landscape has been artificially cemented with human made concrete, commercially formed into a non-natural garden. They even build fountains and sculptures on it try to lure more tourists. On that creation, they built cement staircase for tourists to climb up for photography. Our tour guide kept saying this is the original Guilin and a ‘must see’ spot but we refuse to pay the entrance fees for this kind of artificial works. However some tourists are in happy mood joyfully rushing to take photos beside the fountain.

Du xiu feng experience
The second spot is a much bigger recreational area of College built within and blended together with the natural landscape. This one we can't escape because the guide sent out a strong message if we don't see it we won't see the real Guilin. Okay then, we must pay RMB60. Inside the gate, we are loking at somebody else’s College. It is a place where we can see classes and students’ works. Walk and walk we come to a cement staircase for climb-up I supposed. We climbed the staircase to ascent to the top of Du-Xiu-Feng to see some rubbishes and litters all over on the peak. Up there I can see ‘beautiful’ Guilin full of modern flat square architectures yet with polluted air whilst garbage all over. I had a photo taken here but hopefully I can throw it away.
Welcome to the toilet. While we were waiting for others at the mini bus, we get bored and one of us has an idea to explore the environment. Somewhere near the river behind those flat buildings, we discovered a Marxism toilet. What a pleasurable moment, we quickly take down this photo. There is a Chinese word written on the wall as you can see, it means men’s toilet while the other side has another word, women. We try to stand at least 5 feet in distance to avoid its fragrancy smell. This kind of Marxism toilet has no door but only a wall to separate men and women. I stepped inside to capture its interior but unfortunately my lousy compact camera couldn’t do a good job, so I don’t have its interior photo for you but I try to describe as realistic as possible in words, so that you can enjoy it with me as like you are also there to see this Marxism toilet. Excuse me, it can be Maoism toilet if you are so particular about the name and how about Peoples’ toilet or the Great Leap Forward toilet?

Shan shui yi liu
This is our Guilin acrobatic show. Impressive, worth a look, that little girl was amazing. This one day tour arranged an acrobatic show as entertainment where we enjoy Guilinese dancing and many other performances. I have to say this is a good one, much better than those atificial landscapes. After this entertainment, we just sitting on the bus refusing to pay anymore entrance fees and then we can see the tour guide show us a very ugly face.

Enjoying Guilinese food
We actually enjoy the food more than enjoying the best landscape of China. Since the situation already that hopeless, we decided to spend a few good eating days in Guilin. We really enjoy eating from pulling noodles to hot soup tangyuan to Lijiang fish. My writing skills are not that good yet to be able to describe so many tastes, so let’s forget about it. In a nutshell, we have good impression in Guilin but I will not go back again in future, but to Yangshou.