Rice, noodles and boiled godmothers

We arrived in Guilin after a few hours waiting and another few on the bus. There is no direct bus between Xingping and Guilin, so you have to go via Yangshuo first. The buses go quite often, so it was just a minor inconvenience. It was almost dark already, so we skipped the sightseeing and walked around for a few minutes just to stretch our legs after the bus. Guilin proved to be as expected: most touristy place we've seen so far. It is full of bars, restaurants, shops, tour agencies and people who try to sell you everything that you will never need.

On our first night we were lucky enough to meet a group of four travellers, two German girls, an English girl and a French guy. Most of them study in China, and were on a short holiday. They asked if we would like to join them on a tour to the Dragons Backbone rice terraces, which is one of the highlights of the region: huge hills full of cultivated terraces with farmers from nearby minority villages. Because the tour was ok priced, and they needed 6 people to arrange it, we took the offer. We had planned to go there, after all. We agreed to go the next morning. A Canadian girl, travelling in China for a few weeks already, also showed up for the tour.

It was a bumpy ride for 3 hours in a tiny van (clearly not designed to carry taller westerners) until we got the first sight of the terraces. Unlucky for us, the rice had just been harvested so it was not the best timing because the amazing colors were gone and the visibility was not great that day. Nevertheless it was very impressive. We hiked up and down, stopping for food, drink, toilet or photos, whichever seemed the best excuse at the time to have a short break from the sweaty climate and way too big amount of stairs. After all, we had had enough of stairs after climbing up and down the hill in Xingping a few times already. In the evening we went to a local restaurant together, ordered a table full of food and tasted different local dishes. First (and last?) time with chicken feet for Ben! On these occasions Anni is quite happy being vegetarian and sticking to the not always so tasty, but usually not so creepy tofu. It also seemed like a good idea at the time to try another local specialty, a bottle on which the only non-Chinese thing was the number 52. We still know nothing else about this drink than that it is pretty heavy stuff and has a weird taste. It seemed to be more of a success among the guys than the girls.

 

The next day, happy not having lost our eyesight because of the local booze, we enjoyed having a day just to chill out while our new friends were exploring Xingping and Yangshuo. Also a bit of planning too, as usual on the quiet days. We had no idea where to go after Guilin. Everything interesting seemed either far away or up in the mountains, for which we had no proper clothing anymore. So we had to figure something out. Eventually we did. We had a plan again. Two things that we did NOT figure out though: what on earth is crispy boil godmother and is it actually better not knowing?