Monday, June 09, 2008
Once upon Guìlín...
There are rows upon rows of mountains and a river that seemed to flow continuously down into the sea... Whatever it is, there were no floods as the meteorological stations had forecasted. For that I heave a sigh of relief! Otherwise the trip would have been a total waste of time and absolutely humiliating since I emphasized on going despite the CNP's repeated advise against it. But the thing was, it did rain on the last day. Fortunately the rain only began after we finished the day's visitations and were just going to those super-commercialised and money-sucking gemstone, TCM and local produce factories. As expected, nobody was too interested in purchasing any products.
But I think we could have bought some stuff had the tour guide been friendlier. Along the entire trip, the tour guide, Mr Shang (if I remembered correctly), looked like he couldn't wait to get rid of us. I don't remember him smiling to us or chatting with us. Perhaps a little small talk would have build the camaraderie that was otherwise non-existent during the whole trip. In addition, he had poor time management. For the entire 3 day trip, the first two days were very slow and easy as we visited only one or two spots at most. But for the third day, we visited 4 spots and that's excluding the factories. Everyone was pretty much unsatisfied with the itinerary's arrangement and the tour guide's facilitation.
Luckily, we met really nice people on the trip. Excluding the four of us, there were a couple from SZ and four Chinese elderly siblings from Indonesia. Along the trip, everyone inevitably gossiped about the tour guide's ineptness. Besides the hotel and mountains, everything else sucked. The air-conditioner in the coach was so weak that we had to open the windows. The food tasted really bad, even by most Chinese standards.
On the other side, like what my friend said, it's best to remember the good things rather than grumble about the bad ones. This is so darn true. At least we managed to see the Olympic torch relay on our first day in Guilin. That was exciting and sort of fun, although the event disrupted our morning itinerary and we had to fight with the aunties to get a decent view. And I got two Olympics supporting tees from the streets. Hur hur.
I did immerse myself in the beauty and awe of the mountain ranges and wonderful Li River. Although the weather was scorching hot (as opposed to the supposed "rain and thunderstorm") and I wore the same jeans throughout the entire journey, it was still worth it. As an afterthought, I think I enjoyed the trip more than I had intended to because of the people. It was such a joy and my luck to have gone on the trip with the other SMU Singaporeans. Imagine the CNP was there - I can't imagine how to enjoy (I found out later that they also thought likewise).
The standard of living is lower than SZ and the living pace, we soon realised, was much slower too. In addition to Guilin, we also went to the nearby county, Yangshuo, which was where the really nice river and mountains were. It is a place much less industrialised and developed than Guilin. The air is definitely better than SZ and buildings are mostly low-rise. But being shrewd humans, the place is highly commercialised and business touting is rampant. For instance, after we attended an ethnic folk performance, a fee was charged if we wanted to pose for a picture with the performers. The obvious choice was not to take photos and take pictures of the mountains instead. As we tried to walk off to the next destination, we were tailed by the performers to pose for pictures, relentlessly. There was even Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse that popped out of nowhere. Mickey Mouse and PRC - what's the link? That wasn't the end, as we next watched a cock fight under a tent, we thought the pestering would cease. But to our horror, the performers just stood outside the tent and waited until the fight was over and continued to pester everyone. There was a part of the tour in the ethnic village that, if we paid RMB1 we could ring some bells for good luck. These, and some more of the attractions that, needless to say, required some form of payment.
We also took a ride along the Li River. Unfortunately, we didn't have the chance or the mood to spend money on the bamboo dinghy. I wanted to take it at first, but the price was simply not worth the ride. In addition, there wasn't much time for a leisure ride down the river for some reason. But we did have a good light tan because it was so sunny.
On the second day, we finished the tour at 3pm! Taking things in our own stride, we went cycling along the streets and took many pictures. I think we were stopping every 100-200 metres to take a couple of shots during the entire 3-4km ride. Luckily we went cycling because that was the only chance that we could take photos of many mountains and fields while not on the road. It would not have been possible to ask the coach to stop for us to take a few shots along the roadside. As such, that cycling trip (which was not part of the itinerary!) was worth so much.
Now that I'm back in SZ, I'm aware that reality has to set back in again. But I also know that I took a good break away in Guilin.
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