Guilin and Yangshuo - Day 1

This was my recent trip to Guilin and Yangshuo from January 17-22, 2010...

1st of all, thanks to AirAsia that make this trip possible. When they had the zero fare promotion, I fell into their "trap" again. This time I booked 2 destinations with them- Guilin (travel in Jan) and Vietnam/Ho Chi Minh ( travel in March). The return ticket inclusive of food- their famous Nasi Lemak, check-in luggage and hot seat was just RM219.00. What a deal for a 4 hour flight! Our taxi ride from home to LCCT, about 60 km, cost us RM85!

Check-in , immigration and boarding all of which were uneventful. Very soon the boarding was called and with our hot-seat-tickets, we were the first to board. I was grateful that I decided to add RM 25 one way for the hot seat when I did the OLCI. For the 4 hour flight with a couple of inches extra legroom, trust me, definitely worth it!

20 mins after we took off, I noticed that the plane was still flying low and not climbing to the cruising altitude. I thought something was not right and true enough, the captain came on PA saying that we would return to the ground. He said the compartment signal was on and he couldn't get it off. For precautionary reason, he would like the technicians to check first. I just hoped that we did not have to change aircraft as it would be wasting a lot of time. Fortunately we just spent 30 mins or so on the ground and very fast we took off again. This is the first time in all my flying experiences.

Except for that incident, the whole journey was uneventful and we arrived in Guilin one hour late. Once we cleared the immigration/custom, we took a metered taxi to our hotel. It was driven by a lady driver and she was quite friendly. The journey took 45 mins, longer than the usual 25 mins as certain part of the expressway was under construction- from 2 lanes reduced to single lane. It was also very unfortunate that we had to follow behind a three-wheeled vehicle with the speed of 40km/h or less for a good 20 mins. Anyway we arrived at our hotel around 12:30 p.m. The bellboy was fast to unload our luggage from the taxi and we headed straight to the reception for our check in after paying RMB 80 for the taxi fare.

The room was ready and the check-in was fast. We were told that we had been upgraded to a superior room. Bravo! I guess it was due to the low season. The room was on the top floor of the building with a balcony.

Outside view of the Guilin Bravo Hotel.
The lake view from our balcony.

The bed looks comfortable... but it was a tad too firm for my liking. The duvet was comfortable though.

No plasma nor LCD... but satellite channels were adequate.

Tea and coffee maker as well as 2 complimentary mineral water.

The toilet was clean...

Toilet amenities...

The hallway to our room...

After putting our luggage in our room, we headed straight out for lunch. Based on the recommendation from the receptionist, we walked about 300m from our hotel to this restaurant. It was full of local people and we couldn't get a table, so we had to sit facing the wall. Guilin is famous of their rice noodle and we ordered these...

The soup noodle... came with 2 quail eggs and few slices of pork. It was just OK, nothing to rave about.

The fried noodle... tasted funny and we couldn't finish it.

We ordered some side dishes... the "lap cheong" was disgusting. we couldn't finish the rest also. After the lunch we took a stroll to Guilin Lake...

One Chinese temple... but we didn't go in.

Cruising boat... but we didn't join the cruise tour.

The walkway next to the lake.

What a view!

The red bridge looks familiar to you?

Couple took their wedding photo... actually I saw quite a few.

Daytime view of the lake...

Night time view of the lake...

After a couple of hours at the lake, we were a bit tired as we woke up around 4 this morning, we decided to walk back to our hotel for a rest.

Don't you think the reflection is beautiful?

Soon after we had enough rest, we came out again searching for food. We took a 15 mins walk to the city center.

Night time at Guilin City...

Shopping Area...

Plenty of shops...

We chose this restaurant for our dinner... we could dine inside but prefer alfresco as the weather was just perfect- COLD! Along the way from our hotel, we kept buying and eating the local snack, so we were not particularly hungry and we just ordered these...

Steamed Soup... quite good.

The " Char Siew Chee Cheong Fun"... the skin was too thick but eatable.

The fish porridge... unlike the Hong Kong's one which was so smooth. This one too thick. The total bill came to RMB30

The night market at Zhong Shan Road... at least a kilometer long! We didn't buy anything though, as we had to travel to Yangshuo the next day and didn't want to travel heavy. We still had one more day to shop after coming back from Yangshuo... Well, save the best for last!

Beautiful huh?

To be continued...