Gulilin ba! 桂林吧!

Right now it's low season for tourism in Guilin because it's raining nearly every day there. My colleagues had warned me to go there and when I checked the weather forecast it didn't sound promising: for the next ten days it forecasted between medium and heavy rain. So the good news first: The first and third day in and around Guilin there was fantastic sunshine, the second day was a little bit cloudy, but brought only an astounding ten minutes rain. When I got back today to Beijing, this was the first real rain I saw the whole weekend!

So where is Guilin? In the South of China - it's part of the autonomous Chinese region of Guizhou where many minorities live.

The first day I visited Reed Flute Cave (Ludi Yan) , a stalactite and stalagmite cave. Very interesting especially the colourful lightning system used and the creative interpretations of stones. I could see bears, a snowman and a christmas tree as well as a lion saying good bye to visitors. Definitely worth a visit because it's fun. The photo I attach shows a stalactite and stalagmite scene called "Shanghai" or "Beijing" or "New York" - whatever version the visitor prefers.

After that the famous Elephant Trunk Hill: a rock formation next to the river resembling an elephant drinking water. I always liked elephants because they are so peaceful animals.

Climbing Fubo Hill, another famous sight of Guilin town, I could enjoy a nice sunset over the town and the surrounding mountains which are karst mountains because of their particular form before I went on a night boat trip on the Guilin lakes. On this boat trip we also passed cormorant fishers (Kormoranfischer). The fishers there seem to be too lazy to fish themselves, but they use the birds for that task. They put a string around the cormorants' throats so that they cannot swallow the fish and then take the fish which the cormorant wanted to eat out of their mouthes again. However, it seems that there are not many real cormorant fishers anymore. When I asked, I was explained: "fishing is not allowed on the lakes here, they just are allowed to show it for tourists". Well...

First day's conclusion: "Guilin shan shui jia tian xia" / "Guilin's scenery beats that of anywhere in the world" as a Chinese saying goes, seems to be true.