We were picked up this morning from our hotel in Yangshuo for the drive back to Guilin for a tour of the site’s around the city. The drive took us first to the Elephant Trunk Hill park. At the confluence of the two rivers around Guilin, there is a rock formation that looks a little like an elephant with its trunk dipped in the water. This is the sole purpose of the park, but the local government have added some additional statues and landscaping to the area to try to justify the exorbitant entrance prices.
This was followed by a visit to Seven Star park, which was built around seven peaks that align with the Big Dipper. The park was a lot bigger than both of us had been expecting, and very green too. The park housed a very cramped and ill considered zoo, camel riding and some beautiful scenery. It was also where former President Bill Clinton gave a speech about environmental protection in 1998.
The next stop of our whistle-stop tour of Guilin was the Reed Flute Cave, so named because of the specific species of Reed Bamboo that grows at it’s entrance. The caves are one of the lesser known highlights of Guilin. The caves are lit in all colours and all the different rock formations make up various different scenes, some of which need a little more imagination than others to see. They were beautiful and we both thoroughly enjoyed our visit here. This was the last stop on our tour so we headed back to the hotel to check back in before our night boat trip around Guilin City.
The evening took us down to the banks of the Fir River for a brief waterways tour of Guilin by night. Whilst on this tour we saw a miniature Golden Gate Bridge, Arc de Triomphe, London Bridge, the bridge from the Summer Palace in Beijing, and many others. We were also treated to a demonstration of how the locals use the cormorants to help their fishing needs. It was quite interesting, but confirmed our theory that it was a slightly cruel methodology. We are now preparing to jet off to Hong Kong tomorrow afternoon for the very last bit of our journey. I’m a little disappointed it’s coming to an end, but hey, we still have 10 days in Hong Kong :D before we leave China for good :(.