Next Stop: Guilin

While at GZ airport, an ELong (or YiLong) promoter chatted with me to intro their hotel booking services. I was already an ELong member anyway. On hearing that, he offered to arrange for someone to pick me up at GL airport, free of charge. That's nice, or so I thought.

After a short 1 hour flight on China Southern Airlines, landed at GL airport and there was someone waiting for me. But, ended up not taking the ride, as the lady told me that she's a tour agent, and can only give me the ride if I take up their travel package. No thanks! No biggie, as I had planned on making my own way by taxi to the hotel anyway.

Glad that I read all those stories on the internet about how GL is full of people waiting to rip you off. Other than the tour agent, the taxi driver is another one trying to sell tour packages at inflated prices. Now, this guy is persistent. Throughout the journey, he just kept on offering to bring me to a tour agent office and book a river cruise. I would find out later that the price he offered was 100Y more than the normal cruise, and his was actually another kind that starts off at another town. The route was reduced by about half.

Managed to make it to my hotel Grand 0773 without having to take any tours. From the outside, it's just a simple 6-storey building. But the rooms were a surprise. Looks very modern. Even comes with something that could be a sun bed.

Booked my river cruise with the agent at the hotel lobby. 245Y. Note that I got ripped off anyway. Found out later that normal price from agent is 235Y. Sick.


Lunch was at a nice looking restaurant near the hotel that sells local specialties. Look at the hygenic packaging of the bowls and plates. Tried their famous mifen (beehoon or rice vermicelli) that looks and tastes more like noodles. This version is too oily though, like many of their food.



Walked to Elephant Trunk Hill (Xiangbishan). The shape of the hill looks like an elephant dipping its trunk into the water to drink. Can u see? Yeah, it's pretty boring, so didn't go to the other sights. Anyway, they're just more mountains. There'll be many more mountains to see in the next few days.


Guilin is a nice looking city, as u can see from these pics. At night, the multi-coloured lights come on and give the city a different look. U can take a night cruise around the city too.

Anyway, as my new backpacker friend from China and also what had been said about Guilin on the internet, forget about Guilin. Just go straight to Yangshuo. Much more things to see and everything's cheaper there. Much more holiday feel to it too.