Now was to begin the more relaxing part of the trip. Guilin, an area famous for it's beautiful scenery, and painted in countless Chinese watercolours because of this, was next on the agenda. The flight from Chengdu was running an hour or so late, so we were quite late into the hotel. The tour guide was to meet us in the lobby at 8:30 the following morning for our only excursion here, a 5 hour boat trip down the river Li through the mountains.
The trip was superb, the scenery stunning, with a light haze to the air giving it the atmosphere captured in those watercolours. The mountains here aren't big, perhaps 200-300 metres in height, but they are unnaturally steep. The landscape here looks like fingers pointing at the sky, with steep cliffs, large caves and greenery. Despite the steepness, perhaps due to the highly pocketed rock, foliage abounds on these hills.
The river life was really interesting as well, with crows and egrets circling above, boatmen punting their bamboo rafts up the shallow river, usually to hook up with on of the tour ferrys to try to sell their wares (usually jade or fruit) to the tourists, or their shellfish to the cooks whose kitchens are on the aft of the boats. There are water bison wading in the river, families winkle picking in the shallows, women doing the laundry on the riverside, and fishermen with their rows of cormorants on their rafts. Apparently a good cormorant will fetch in 5 kilos of fish a day - they have a collar around their necks which stops them swallowing the larger fish, but they are loose enough that they can eat the smaller fish. We think William may have seen a Kingfisher, as the bird dove into the water, and came up a few seconds later glistening blue and red in the sun.
The following day and a half we spent wandering the lake by the hotel. The lake is a large oxbow lake running through the city and joining the River Li at both ends. The lake has been beautifully landscaped all along its length for the use of the public. We walked right along to the water gate where it meets the Li, the site of a private park which we wandered around. We were hoping to climb to the top of one of the karst mountains, but the one here in the park, though we could see people at the top, had no entrance from this side, and it wasn't at all clear how to find the way up. The second day we strolled around the lake closer to the hotel, having Tea and a game of chess on an island in the middle of the lake.
We had lunch of noodles at a noodle bar (3 yuan - 30 pence - for a large bowl of noodles with pork, including shedded pigs ear, vegetables and sauce) and McD's for Will. I find it a good idea to fill William's boots when we find a western restaurant, as otherwise he mainly eats rice and plain noodles, and sometimes pork, duck or chicken if it's plain enough - but not a great deal of those.
At 3pm we met the tour guide again for the journey to the airport, and (a couple of hours late again) we flew out to Hong Kong.
We arrived in Hong Kong, and here the arrangements were a little different. A tour company called Vigour had a desk here, and we were to find the desk, and they would ferry us to the hotel. The hotel was in the centre of Kowloon on the mainland. Kowloon was exactly how you see it in the films - bright neon lights everywhere, all competing for space in the crowded space above the shop fronts. The hotel itself was set up rather strangely, with the room on the 5th floor, and the restaurant on the 15th. By the time we arrived, it was gone 10pm, so William got to bed, followed shortly by me (after a few very poorly played games of Chinese Chess against the computer - it will take some time to get to grips with the strategy of this very different game!)
In the morning, we had a leisurely breakfast, and laze around until we checked out at 12. I didn't really want to check out any earlier, as we were not being picked up from the hotel until 8pm, so even checking out at 12 gave us 8 hours to fill.
We set off to a Pharmacy - half of which was dedicated to Western medicine, half to Chinese traditional medicine - to pick up some sun cream to replace the bottle we had got confiscated at customs. Then onto the subway, and got the tube through to Hong Kong island. We then headed up to Hong Kong park - the most interesting way up to our goal, the Peak - the summit of the island, which is reached by a steep tramway. The park was really interesting, with desert and tropical plants in a large conservatory, and the highlight, a walkthrough aviary full of hundreds of brightly coloured birds in a huge netted compound.
The tram took us up to the Peak Tower, a shopping centre with numerous restaurants and cafes, and more tasteless and tacky trinkets than you could shake a stick at. We stopped at a Honk Kong style cafe for noodles and tea, and then headed to the very top of the tower to take in the views - much to Williams disgust!
We spent a little time here on top of Victoria Peak, William did some drawing, while I told you about the events of the day thus far. We watched some scaffolders erecting some bamboo scaffolding against the side of the Peak Tower. The structure looked pretty sturdy, and an advantage of the bamboo over steel became apparent - to get the ends of the scaffold neat and tidy, they simply took a saw to it! Another tram ride back down the hill, and a bus down to the central docks, and we saw the city in all its technicolour glory, as by now it was dark, and the skyscrapers of Hong Kong town and Kowloon across the water were lit up. In my opinion this was far more breathtaking a view than the skyline as viewed from the Peak!
We took a ferry across to Kowloon - a remarkably quick and cheap journey at just under 40p for the two of us - where we went up to the viewing platform over the harbour to take some shots of Hong Kong town in all its glory ("Not more photo's silly Daddy!")
Another bus ride took us to the middle of Kowloon and the brightness of all it's neon, and wandered back to the hotel where I sit with a large Mocha, William with a hot chocolate, waiting until 8pm when our tour rep will take us back to the Airport and the long journey home.
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