Carol's Travels

After checking out of our hotel, our bus took us to the dock for the Li River Cruise. Everyone on the ship had been assigned seats, and our guide said mine was at a window. We opened this large window, and I took most of my pictures from my seat. Once I walked up to the viewing deck at the top of the ship, but our window view was much better. During the cruise, we had a mediocre Chinese buffet lunch, but that was no surprise because our guide had warned us to eat a big breakfast. 

         
 
The weather was misty at the beginning of the cruise, but after a while the sun came out. The whole cruise felt like I was cruising through a Chinese painting. Four hours later, we disembarked at Yangshuo. It was hot and muggy as we walked through the very interesting crafts market. None of us felt much like shopping, though. Besides, we had spent all of our yuan on the spectacular show we would see this evening.

We checked into our hotel and cooled down in our air-conditioned rooms. At 6:00 we went to dinner. The food was excellent at this family-owned restaurant. One of the dishes was eggplant strips in fermented soybean sauce. Soybeans have to set in water for a month to be fermented. Fish cooked in beer was another specialty. We were served ten different dishes, and all were delicious.

After that, we went to Impression San Jie Liu, the spectacular outdoor show which was created by the man who created the Opening Ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics. A cast of 600 local farmers, fishermen, children, and other people who work or go to school during the day participate in this elaborate production. From March to November there are two to three productions every night except when there is heavy rain. The lighting, sound, and effects were superb. It would be mind-boggling to rehearse, make costumes that light up, paddle boats, and manipulate long strips of red silk cloth attached to both sides of the water stage with mountains in the background. 

It has been hot today.

5232steps, 2.2 miles

Our hotel, Guilin Bravo Hotel, has two buffet breakfast rooms. One is the Asian breakfast and the other is the European/American breakfast. We chose the American.

At 9:30 we headed out for Longsheng Rice Terraces. It was a 2-hour drive up into the mountains where we saw beautiful scenery. When we reached the top of the main road, we transferred to a van that took us on a 20-minute drive to the end of the road. China Focus had arranged for us to visit a small village that is not usually visited by tourists, so we walked up the mountain to the village above the rice paddies. The weather was misty and somewhat foggy. It was a pleasant walk, though.   

When we got to the village, I stopped to buy some serving spoons made of water buffalo from a local woman. She let me take a picture of her after the purchase. Our guide, Li Jien Feng, said that it is unusual to find these spoons for sale. Combs are a lot more prevalent.  

Then we had lunch at a local restaurant. We enjoyed the “simple meal,” as our guide called it. They served us the usual rice, vegetable dishes, and a meat dish, but we got a surprise dish that was quite welcome….French Fries! Cha-Cha-Cha came out for a few minutes to say hello to a few people there. I looked into the doorway of the kitchen to look at the big bowls of pig blood. They had killed a pig to prepare for an upcoming wedding. It is customary that all the villagers will be invited. It is customary that guests give money as gifts. 

Then we took a walk uphill passing by the homes of the villagers. Most of the parents are working in the city, and the grandparents are left in the village to care for the children. We walked down many stone steps past the school. It was 2:40 when we reached the school, but we were not allowed to come in because the children would be napping until 3:00. At least we saw the outside of the building. 

Then we took the lower road back to the place we could pick up the small bus. The fog and mist had cleared, so I took lots of pictures of the rice terraces. 

Tonight we ate dinner at a restaurant near our hotel. Our guide had ordered six dishes for us, some of which we had not had before. I liked the eggplant dish and the fish dish the best.  

10413 steps, 4.43 miles

We spent a restful night in the Tibet Hotel because we slept in a comfortable king-sized bed. We checked out of the hotel at 9:00 A.M. to start our adventure at the Panda Research Institute. Wang Yi (Jonathon), our guide, led us all over the park pathways. We saw adult, young, and baby giant pandas in beautiful settings like they were in the wild. Besides the giant pandas, we also saw the endangered smaller red pandas. We enjoyed watching a movie in English with Chinese subtitles about the research institute. The next showing was in Chinese with English subtitles.  

  

 
 

We also ate a delicious Chinese lunch at the restaurant there which included one of my favorite dishes, Kung Pau Chicken. After lunch we walked by Black Swan Lake where we could see swans and koi. Both children and adults had bought food to feed them. 

Then we rode in our bus to a Chinese Buddhist Temple which was quite different from the Tibetan temples. This was more open with lovely courtyards and gardens. We went into a library that was available for everyone to use. There were round seats for people to sit while they listened to lectures. The seats were hard so that the people sitting in them wouldn’t fall asleep.

An elderly retired man was playing the Piba, a beautiful 4-stringed instrument, at one end of the room. I walked over to listen, and he seemed very pleased that I showed so much interest. He posed for me while I took his picture. 

 
As we all walked back through the gardens to the bus, Wang Yi said to Anita, “Look over there. That rich monk has iPhone 6.” due to his pronunciation,she thought that he said sex instead of six, and that the monk was watching sex on his phone. However, our guide in trying to make her understand, told her that the iPhone 6 had just come out a few days ago. We all got a good laugh out of this. It is amazing how the wrong pronunciation of one word can change the meaning of a sentence.

We then went to an old section of town to walk among shops and restaurants for a while. After that, our van maneuvered through the very crowded city streets toward the airport. We stopped for dinner at Ba Guo Bu Yi, an upscale restaurant with delicious food. We decided that Chinese food is far superior to Tibetan food!

After dinner we drove about half an hour to the airport. When the bus was maneuvering through the heavy traffic, Wang Yi said that there are now 4 million cars in Chengdu and 1,000 more are added every day! Beijing has 5 million cars. There are no laws in Chengdu like in Beijing where the license number of the car determines which days cars can be on the road. 

We flew to Guilin. Our guide, Li Jian Feng (David) met us. He is very knowledgeable,and he speaks excellent English.