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My short trip to China was phenomenal and far exceeded expectations - the warm people, stunning landscapes, and depth of culture. Being my maiden trip to China, it was also an introduction to several Chinese staples (some unique to the region): rice noodles for breakfast; rice noodles for lunch; spitting; Chenglish; tour group megaphones; ubiquitous, blaring folk music; traffic laws (there are none); the hard sleeper train; and the morning tai chi / shouting routine.
My short trip to China was phenomenal and far exceeded expectations - the warm people, stunning landscapes, and depth of culture. Being my maiden trip to China, it was also an introduction to several Chinese staples (some unique to the region): rice noodles for breakfast; rice noodles for lunch; spitting; Chenglish; tour group megaphones; ubiquitous, blaring folk music; traffic laws (there are none); the hard sleeper train; and the morning tai chi / shouting routine.
Guângxī Province
The misty Li River winds its way through Guilin and Yangshuo amongst endless limestone cliffs and rice fields, offering otherworldly topography that trumps Rio de Janeiro's vistas on a meager day. Meandering through the surrounding villages on bicycle feels more like an interactive painting than planet Earth. Generally I was received by village folks with mixed reviews - some expressing curiosity while others impatience.
Guilin is a fun town with many markets, but is most useful as a jumping point to other places. Locals eagerly befriend Westerners to practice their English, and pitch any number of services offered by their cousin's friend's brother: "authentic" Chinese tea; massages (a loosely used term as elsewhere in Asia); river cruises; trips to Dragon's Back. The river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo exposes awesome views of the myriad cliffs stacked on one another. I travelled here with four Chinese tourists from Kunming which was a rewarding insight into Chinese culture, albeit not the local one.
Yúnnán Province
Next we boarded a sleeper train from Guilin to Kunming, which was meant to be an 18-hour journey but, due to flooding from a rain storm, slowly grew to 22.5 hours. Luckily, TsingTao beers were sold on the train for 5 yuan, or about 75 cents. My Chinese friends were not keen to much drinking, but an Austrian fellow and a British couple were conveniently in company. In Kunming I joined Tony's wife and family for dinner, and some enjoyable bar-hopping ensued with Sky, Ray, Victor, and their respective wives.
From Kunming I flew to Lijiang and whiled away about a week. The thousand-year-old "old town", a World Heritage site, is home to the NaXi people (aka Nakhi), a Chinese ethnic group that originated in Tibet. Their native language (today the only living pictographic script), dress, and food were fun to discover. Water canals maze the city which once supplied drinking water and are utilized to flood and clean the city's cobblestone walkways. Towering above Lijiang is the 5,596-meter Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, regarded as one of the premier scenic sites in all of China. Its reflection in Black Dragon Pool is extraordinary.
