guilin

despite best efforts at "free and independent" travel, still end up relying on agents for all kinds of ticketing and arrangements. on the transfer from the airport to the hotel, a guide briefed us on the dire ticket situation, pretty much for any and every activity. jolted by mild panic, we ended up booking the lijiang (river) cruise tickets as well as the day trip to longji on 6/5 with her. [the 2 lijiang cruise ticket options were: i) 430 rmb for foreign tourist treatment, including transport to the port and ii) 370 rmb for cruise plus yangshuo half-day tour. good thing this chinese couple wanted option (ii) without the tour. which turned out to be available, "but only because we're a large reputable agency," for 250 rmb and 30 rmb handling, ie rip-off, fee.]

the golden elephant hotel was conveniently located near a bus stop and a stretch of restaurants as well as opposite eponymous attraction, elephant hill. first things first, lunch: steamed catfish, baiguo duck soup, wild vegetables and guilin noodles. they certainly like their food fresh here. both the fish as well as the duck that was to travel down our gullets were handpicked and weighed. quite a few of the restaurants had these animals out front: ducks, chickens, fish, snakes, turtles, rabbits and bamboo rats. meal was rather pricey at 240 rmb for 3. i blame the duck.

the tourist attractions were a disappointment. best things about the seven star limestone cave was the 20 degree temperature. so who first came up with the descriptions for the limestone formations anyway? this has now passed into orthodoxy, the practised patter of the guides. surely there must be heretical texts out there: beneath the bounteous banyan, the dominatrix stands, ready to flick the whip on the cowering slave before her.
decided to skip elephant hill. if the entire attraction can be summed up in 2 words...
headed to fubo hill, which was ridiculously packed for a dubious attraction.
the free tourist bus 58 attracts the locals as well but isn't all that frequent. regular buses ply the same routes for 1 rmb a pop.

back to that same stretch of restaurants for dinner. curiously enough, it was the same shrink-wrapped crockery that we encountered at lunch. a crockery monopoly?? we had fish head tofu soup, tofu skin and cabbage stems, yam with fatty meat, and some snail-like creature. none of which required on-the-spot, before-our-eyes slaughtering, so it cost only about half what we paid for lunch. walked about after dinner but there was nothing particularly interesting. lots of neon lights, including a flashy flashing one for the hospital.