We enjoyed a relaxing morning in our suite and checked out late in the day to make our 4PM train to Guilin. We had to change trains at a station a bit down the line and arrived after dark. Guilin is a small Chinese city, only 4.5 million folks, so services at the station were a bit lax...smile. We hailed a cab and after the usual dance with our translators and the taxi drive saying he knew where to go we took off. As the meter kept ticking away nearing 100 CNY , and Bobbie watching our progress on her GPS, we had a bit of a discussion. He pulled over, made a call to the hotel, and we were back on track. LOL.
Our hotel is located in the center of the city, literally in the middle of a huge park. We were dropped at the entrance to the park and the hotel sent an electric cart to meet us. This place is fabulous. It is called the Guilin Royal Palace, and although it was probably only built within the last 20 years, it looks like the real thing. Once again we secured a beautiful suite using the last of our Hotels.com reward nights. It will be back to Airbnbs when we leave China...smile...it has been a great run.
Our location on the map is the dark red compound on the bottom.
We had a great night in our 8' wide "emperor" bed and enjoyed a grand buffet breakfast before being met by our driver who escorted us to our meet up location for the bus ride to the cruise port. The bus had westerners onboard and we enjoyed chatting with a newlywed senior couple from Slovenia (took notes), a doctor and his wife from Austrailia, a Chinese family who sat at our table on the boat, and the surprise for the day came from three ladies from Houston....who it so happens, live about three blocks from Rick and Susy and one of them works for Rick's former high school...a small world indeed.
It was an hour drive out of the city reaching the cruise port where there must have been about 60 or more riverboats all lined up and each boarding hundreds of passengers. For a Monday it was packed. Our boat was a first class cruiser with an air conditioned main cabin. We settled in and took off on a three hour cruise down the Li River winding in and among the beautiful karst landscape.
At the end of the cruise was a lovely river town where we wandered the streets for a few hours, actually did a bit of shopping and found a great embroidered piece to send home. We then boarded the bus for an two hour visit to a 'silly' local attraction called "Wonderland" which was a cultural tourist trap with a float around a man-made river. The highlight was the karst cave we floated through and there was some nice art in a few of the zillion shops...although it was labeled a cultural site...there was little "culture" going on and a lot of shopping.
At the cultural park we waiting in the midst of thousands for over an hour to get on one of the boats. My claustrophobia was in high gear.
The cheery blossoms were amazing...until we realized it was JULY and they were plastic...LOL.
These "dancers" literally stood still as we passed. It wasn't until the oarsman yelled that they started to move a bit.
These ladies sang a short local song. Very nice.
The Ming gardens were lovely
Beautifully done calligraphy.
For our last day in Guilin we opted to walk the huge park. It was once again almost 100^ and the shade was welcomed. The pool offered us additional relief and we enjoy a short swim. Guilin is an older city and once again we loved the older architecture and local street scene. We visited a local grocery store once again...one of our favorite things to do, bought some coffee, had lunch and toured the large city park. In the evening we crossed town for a visit to the night market and dinner. After dark we circle Spirit Lake and enjoyed the light show.
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