Guilin , China
So we get up a 5am to Fly to Guilin. Painful on a business trip, more painful with three little kids. However the kids were great, actually got moving, even my almost twelve year old who is often immovable in the mornings.
The flight was out of the Shanghai domestic airport, clean and efficient. In case folks haven't noticed by now, I am a bit of stickler when it comes to travel. We get on the plane, a China Air Airbus, where my first anecdote cometh ;- )
We are in the middle of the plane, a row behind the exit seats. Four guys are in the row in front of us, late thirties, early forties, gold wedding rings on fingers, in the exit row. The sharply dresses flight attendant comes up and starts giving the guys the standard emergency exit row speech (" in the event of an emergency, are you wlliing to assist?, can you lift the 15 kilos of the door etc"). One guy, across the aisle starts giving his friends grief, the standard "you can't trust this guy, move him out" with lots of ensuing laughter. It's a scene I've been in myself, and a scene I've witnessed a lot. But this was in Chinese, and somehow we could understand every word. That's when I said to my wife, these are four guys going golfing, noticing the Callaway shirt on one, and the Footjoy jacket on another (did not have to be Sherlock Holmes on this one).
We pull back from the gate, and that's when the 20+ French tourists (unbathed and the reason the flight left late) started playing musical chairs. WHILE THE PLANE WAS TAXIING! The flight attendants were too polite to tell the stinky foriegners to stop, but it we were just incredulous as these people kept on moving from front to back of plane and back to front of plane, pushing past people in rows, lurching against seats, spreading their fragrance everywhere. As an aside, we actually have run into the group a few more times, their travel group is called "Arts en Vie" (art and life), and they go to the same tourist places as everyone else, at the same time as they are probably sneering at American "tourists". Sorry to write like this (actually I'm not), but when we land and the same people start trying to move back and forth past rows and rows of people including pushing my kids, that's when I draw the line. Get a grip people, and wait your turn. Chinese folks are not that great on waiting in line, but I have not seen them push children, and at least they shower.
So we get out in Guilin's modern, efficient airport, and my wife and I tried to match the golf clubs coming out to the appropriate Shanghai'ese gentleman that they belong too (yes, it was four Chinese guys on a guys golf trip). I did not even know there were golf courses here, but more on that later.
Leaving the airport, it's about a 45 minute drive to the hotel in Guilin. Guilin is a city of about 600,000, a two plus hour flight south from Shanghai. The contrast with Shanghai could not have been clearer in the five minutes it took to exit the airport. Immediately there were terraced rice paddies. Some with people in the middle, as it is planting season, and the rice was being planted as it had for hundreds or thousands of years. A few fields, obviously owned by the more affluent, had huge water buffalo helping out. No trucks, no tractors, nothing mechanized to be seen.
As we approached Guilin, it started to change back again. The highway itself was brand new (three years, the new infrastructure thing again). The outer areas were not as affluent, but still spotless, and obviously a huge improvement over twenty years ago. One of the differences that stood out was that the billboards and stores all had dramatically less English writing or 'accents' than the billboards and storefronts in Shanghai, indicating that this was a "Chinese City" as opposed to international gateway.
We get to downtown Guilin, a modern, tidy urban core, beautiful parklands, a modern European promenade along the Li River which cut the city in two. Our hotel is an aging Sheraton from the mid-80's, great location, clean, excellent service.
I wrote the stuff above a few days ago, but it's been a mad scramble since. Guilin is a 'must see', but power touring is exhausting! One thing to be careful of in Guilin is that Guilin either stands for city with great places to visit, or could mean "upsell" in Chinese. EVERY place you go, there is upselling. Our tourguide, who is great, does it reflexively…"oh, you do want to see this..it's extra". You ask for tea in a restaurant…they bring the special bag for 'extra'. The'll learn at some point that it's better to probably build the extra cost into stuff for foreigners, as it's all a great value, and the 'extras' get to be a bit of a pain.
I'm going to throw in some Guilin photos here for fun, and save my commentary for tomorrow, as it's late. I'll have two stories to tell, one on the segmentation of personal/business transportation, and 'the old lady'…
Guilin View in the old days…the haze is in all the old pictures, probably more today, lots of stuff in the air…
Going back to my post a few days ago…Guilin of the burgeoning golf trade:
Old China: Comerant fishing (this was a demo for tourists, but there was the real thing on the Li river, they band the birds necks to catch big fish (the birds can't swallow the fish, as their necks are banded), when the Bird "gives it up" to the fisherman, they get a smaller fish as a reward. The river was very clear, you could see the birds doing their thing at night 4-5 feet below the surface of the river:
Doubt this has changed much in the last few centuries:
Nor this:
Nor this:
But this has!!! Billboard on the banks of the Li River:
Even this would be a sign only in the last twenty years:
But this would be now!
An this, thousands of kids all out on the streets, strolling the pedestrian mall, a scene right out of a Euro pedestrian street (would be nice to have in the US, but all we've got are basically malls). Everybody well dressed, enthisiastic, head held high. Again, don't want to sound to rosy, more for another post, but the energy was easily sensed, even in a semi-backwater tourist town (albeit one with a bunch of universities) these kids were confident.
Enough for now!
Gorgeous photos, cool commentary!
Posted by: Arun Inam | April 22, 2007 at 07:28 PM