Day 7 - Guilin


Today was a beautiful day in Guilin! When we decided to come to China, we knew we wanted to go to 3 cities. Beijing and Xi'an were easy decisions, but we had a hard time deciding between Guilin and Shanghai. Now that we are here, I'm 100% positive we made the right choice. Guilin is much smaller than the other cities, but it still has 5 million people that live in the cities and the suburbs! When we told Lele that the entire state of Utah only had 3 million people he was incredulous. He just looked at us and said "that's it?" The city of Guilin is still pretty big, but it's surrounded by mountains and beautiful countryside.

We had ample time today to enjoy the countryside because we had a 2-hour drive to the Longji Rice Terrace Fields. Native Chinese people lived in Guilin before people from the North invaded. Lele compared these people to Native Americans. When Northern China invaded, the local people went to the mountains where they have lived ever since. The rice terraces we visited have been here for 300 years and took 100 years to create. The families who live in the village still farm the same rice paddies that their ancestors did 200 years ago.

When we were driving we had an interesting conversation with Lele about guns in America. It's interesting because every single one of our guides has asked us about guns, and talked about how they are scared to come to America because they think they might get shot. Unfortunately, I think the news that makes it here to China makes it seem like everyone carries guns everywhere they go. Our guides have specifically asked us if we have guns (and we are proud to tell them we do not). I think this says a lot about gun violence in America.

We arrived at the rice terraces and started hiking. The weather in Guilin is very similar to Florida, so it is very hot and humid. It didn't take long before we were very sweaty hiking. The total hike was 9 kilometers (about 5.5 miles). We started the hike by going through the local village. Lele told us on the drive up that many of the villagers still wear traditional clothing, which we saw while we were walking through the village. The women-only cut their hair once in their life, so it's very long. They also cover it up after they are married. Most of the villagers are not very educated, and so they earn money by farming or selling things to tourists. They also collect half of the money for ticket sales at the end of the year to survive, which is why they have chosen to open their community up to tourists. There are other minority villages around this particular village that we visited, but they aren't open to tourists so they are much more impoverished.


Cooking bamboo rice

This is one of the locals with long hair. She was showing me a picture of women like her washing their hair.



A traditional style local home. Two or three generations would live together in this home
Local women gather near the center of the village
Rice from the prior year's harvest. It is dried and can be used until the next rice crop is ready. 
All the construction in this village is built without nails. Instead, they cut holes in the wood and fit the beams together. 

During our hike, we asked Lele if people from Guilin loved or hated Chairman Mao. He told us that people from the country love Mao, but people from the city typically don't. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao made many people from the city move to the country to learn how to farm. This led to lost opportunities in the city, such as attending university. It was interesting to talk to him about it. Another funny moment we had on the hike was telling Lele about my family's farm in Ephraim. We told him there are over 1,000 cows and he couldn't believe it. We then told him my Dad was a rodeo cowboy and he asked us if he wore the hat and the boots. We responded affirmatively. He didn't know what to say after that...

The views hiking to the top were truly breathtaking. We stopped several times along the way to take photos. Fortunately, there was a nice breeze, so even though it was very hot, we were able to stay mostly cool. After we reached the top of the terraces, we moved laterally on the mountain to see a different view and then hiked back down to the village where we had lunch. At the second viewpoint, it began to rain quite hard. Fortunately, we were undercover, so we just waited it out. During the rainstorm the dragonflies were out - it was pretty amazing and beautiful to see them flying about in the rain.


























For lunch, we had bamboo rice, which is sticky rice mixed with vegetables cooked inside of bamboo. It had a delicious smoky flavor - we loved it! This is something you can only get in the minority villages, so we were glad we tried it. We also had bamboo shoots and bacon, sizzling beef, tofu, and bok choy. It was one of our favorite meals on the trip!








After lunch, we went back to the bus and drove 2 hours back to the City. Our hotel is in an excellent location, so we decided to go explore. We walked out of our hotel and there is a lake directly across from us with 2 pagodas. They are beautiful! We decided to head to dinner next. Lele recommended a place called "Irish Pub" that serves Chinese food. Our hotel is next to the Night Market, which has many stores and restaurants, including the pub. We were skeptical but decided to try it out. We are really glad we did! We ordered beer fish and fried noodles, both are Guilin specialties. They were both delicious. We then found soft serve ice cream for dessert on Night Street (for 8 yuan!!). We wandered around Night Street until we found ourselves at the River. The sun had started to set and so there were lights everywhere.  It was seriously beautiful. China does a lot to make its cities really beautiful. I was so impressed that both Xi'an and Guilin light the cities up at night. The river led to the lake, so we walked around and got some cool night pictures of the pagodas before calling it a night. We can't wait for another fun day in Guilin tomorrow!














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