Arrival in Guilin

The train made its’ way to Guilin at an average speed of 50 km/hour. Everyone was very curious about the Caucasians in the sleeper car, particularly the little girl and her grandfather in the next compartment. He kept trying to engage John in conversation- in Chinese and she became my instant friend after we took a Polaroid of her father and her in the train hallway. She started to share all her snacks with me. We made it through the day on noodles, until one of our later stops when we were able to track down two cold beers from the vendors outside the train. Trying to get a cold beer in the dining car was met with a comment- “It’s cold outside, why do you need cold beer?”.
It’s funny, the Chinese can be so charming on an individual level, but collectively, it’s hard to get past the hawkering, the staring, the shoving and pushing.
We finally made it into Guilin, bypassing the city station and stopping at the new Guilin north station. We grabbed a cab and found our first choice for hotel totally booked…it was a Chinese holiday weekend. So, we opted for the high cost ($70/night) Lijiang Hotel. Our room had a phenomenal view of the city, so we decided it was worth the extra cost.
The Chinese claim that the scenery in Guilin is unlike anywhere on earth. All of the traditional Chinese paintings of mystical peaks and pillars of limestone are based on the scenery here. The city, unfortunately has been taken over by concrete and modernization, just like very other Chinese city.
Our first step in the city was to check on the status of our train tickets. Mr. Long (pronounced Lung) said that he had our tickets- and when we checked, he had gotten us four tickets- in different compartments. We explained, calmly, that we didn’t plan to spend the extra money to send our luggage in soft sleeper and that we needed to have what we originally requested, 4 seats in one compartment. We got ten minutes of excuses (Chinese holiday, difficulty in getting train tickets)- and politely told him that he needed to fix it.