Christmas Holidays in Yangshuo

When it came time for the Christmas holiday, three other teachers and I decided we would experience other parts of China. Our plan was to take a train from Beijing to Xian in the west, spend a day or so and then go to Guilin in the south and spend several more days. Fortunately, one of the other teachers was relatively fluent in Chinese and was able to purchase our train tickets and get us a hotel for the night in Xian. We visited the Ming Tombs, bargained for a Sichuan blanket outside the gates and watched street vendors stretch noodles for ramen. It was a cold but thrilling experience! 

After we saw all we wanted to of Xian, we took the train on Christmas Day to Guilin. Since Guilin is in the southern part of China in the Guangxi region, it took us almost all of Christmas day and I believe part of the next day to get there.  We didn't mind since we were traveling in luxury - soft sleeper! The train has four options available, hard seat and soft seat (they are self explanatory) and hard and soft sleeper. The soft sleeper was a small room with two bunk beds, one on each side of the door - it was cramped, but private from the rest of the train. 

Wearily arriving in Guilin, we were swarmed with the locals telling us of "wonderful" places to stay. We bypassed them and got on a minibus that took us to Yangshuo. Yangshuo is about 75 kilometers south of Guilin and on the minibus, there were a lot of stops, so it took us even longer to get there. Once we reached the town, we knew it was worth the wait. There were people everywhere and it was very tourist friendly. A lot of backpacking foreigners were in the town and many of the restaurants had English on their menus.

Our glee upon choosing Yangshuo quickly turned to dismay when we realized there were no hotel rooms available.  We didn't have to wait long to find a room, although it wasn't what we would have normally chosen, as a hostel had a room available. A room that didn't have any heat or hot water!  

With all the sights to see and the busy markets to explore, even though we were exhausted, another teacher and I went around the town. Since renting bicycles was so inexpensive, we decided that would be the best way to explore the area. Over the next day or two, we rode our bikes all over the countryside from one little village to another. We rode to the Green Lotus Peak, and rode to the several hundred-year-old banyan tree as well as to Moon Hill (Yueliangshan).  The scenery was breathtaking and worth the sore muscles experienced afterward!

After living it up in Yangshuo and breathing free country air, we resigned ourselves to heading back to the city. We left Yangshuo with heavy hearts which became even heavier upon arrival in Guilin. We went to the ticket office to get a train ticket, but we were told they were sold out. We couldn't even get a hard seat back to Beijing! We were horrified since we had to be teaching in a few days and knew that if we didn't get a seat, we were stuck until a seat became available for us to purchase.

While trying to figure out what we were going to do, we toured Guilin. We went to see the Mountain of Piled Brocades (Diecaishan) , Elephant Trunk Hill (Xiangbi Shan) and Whirlpool Hill (Fuboshan) , as well as other less notorious places. Finding a hotel for the night was another less than pleasant experience. All the places the locals urged us to go to had ridiculously high prices, so we attempted to find one on our own. After many unsuccessful attempts, we finally found one we could afford. We ended up sharing a small room and sleeping on cots, but we were warm and clean!

With a better start to the day, we tried again to get transportation back to Beijing. This time we were successful - instead of taking the train - since we now didn't have enough time to get back - we would fly back to Beijing!! The flight left that day - New Year's Eve - so we had to scurry to get a taxi and go to the airport.

from asianinfo.org