A gloomy wet day in Guilin, China

If it was cloudy and grey yesterday then today it was darker and more foreboding as the rainclouds gathered and threatened to rain at any moment.

Knowing that both Shangrila and the Li River were places of natural beauty that really require sun to make them special meant that although I had planned on visiting them once again, much like I did six years ago, I decided against it especially as I am no longer in contact with my friend from here as she married and stopped writing to me a couple of years back.

Memories of sharing a raft across the shallow rapids, of watching the local dance troup perform for me as we floated past and the magnicifently worked pieces of artwork carved onto eggshells ran through my mind, and if anyone is to visit here during the warm and dry summer months then I would say that these are the two most important and absolute 'must see' places, with the star caves and the princes city a distant third and forth.

Around lunchtime I took a wander and expected to get a massage and change some money but it seems that it was not to be. Despite this being a city in China I found it next to impossible to find anywhere that I could get a massage. The first huge spa hotel was open for letting out rooms to guests but the spa itself was closed for some reason and the only other place I found did not want me as I was male.

Walking through the city streets I noticed something very unusual that made me suddenly like Guilin a whole lot more, the lack of peope and traffic. Guilin is a modern city and I am sure there are plenty of people who live and work here yet I find that at all times the roads seem overly quiet and slow moving. Having ridden in a taxi or two while being here I know that it is not that the cars cant go fast, or even that the traffic is so thick that going at speeds is dangerous, it just seems like no one is in a hurry to get anywhere and I have not seen a single car go over I would say about 30 kph. Neither do they use the horn even half as much as in most other cities.

For example, I made my way diagonally over a eight lane cross junction in the middle of the day and not only did I not cause a single car to swerve out of the way or break suddenly but I didnt even get a single horn blaring at me to move along. Such a manouvre would be putting my life in my hands in most cities and in the majority of the rest would illicit so many horns I would be deaf for an hour but here it was the most normal thing in the world to do and I expect that there must be some law here saying that cars must not exceed 30 unless there is an emergency.

( On a total side note I want to say that I chop sticks vary greatly wherever I go here in the fast east. In Bangkok I never saw anyone use them, not even by the locals, in Korea they are metal and flat and in Vietnam they were coloured black ).

After failing to find a place to get a massage I found a snoker club that was reasonably priced so racked them up and planned on having a few frames, however the table condition quickly changed my mind. It seemed to be fairly level but the cloth was so thick, and possibly damp, that it made every shot that much harder and playing to get position unthinkable. Even on a bad day I score more than 20 points yet today I could not manage a single red, colour combination and although I am rusty I didnt feel that I was playing that bad.

Following the snooker I had a pizza that was yummy before heading back to my hotel and trying to organise a trip for tonight and a train or bus to Hong Kong for tomorrow. As fortune had it the English speaking receptionist was not on duty but another guest who spoke passable English was in the reception at the time and kindly offered to help me arrange everthing, even suggesting that I skip the idea of travelling overland to Hong Kong unless I was confident about switching buses a few times as the route from here was not direct.

With this new info, added with the fact that I could get 60% off the cost of a flight if I didnt mind arriving at midnight, I decided to fly to the nearest big city on a direct route to HK and from there wait til first light and then catch a train over the border.

I also managed to arrange a trip to see some local dance troupe perfrom some traditional Guilin dance and opera, which I hoped was very cool and was exactly what i had hoped I could see.

The rain started to come down just as my taxi arrived to take me to the venue and here one of the advantages of travelling solo came to me, I could fit into a single seat in the middle or at the end of a row otherwise occupied seats without any problem at all. The show was good, full of pretty dancers and bright costumes, but because of the rain it was over in only 45 minutes and that meant that I had almost another 45 minutes before my taxi was due to arrive and bring me back.

Once the show ended there was an unexpected highlight for me, which was that I got to see some genuine cock fighting, hosted there also right after the performance. Four cages of feisty cocks were on show and the tamers were taking bets on who would win from the crowd before they let the fighters see each other. Thankfully this was not an ugly or barbaric fight to the death, or even to first blood and they were not trapped in a steel cage, quite the opposite, they placed both cocks at opposite ends of a raised platform and the winner simply had to push or scare the other bird into running away. There was no blood or guts and all the birds looked as if they were put away physically as good as they were before they started, though how they felt emotionally is another question.

Every since I first saw the classic Bruce Lee film 'Ener the Dragon' I have wanted to ride on a traditional wooden sloop and watch some locusts fight, but a genuine bloodless cock fight was almost as good.

The rain came down even heavier now, but after the momentary distraction of the cock fighting all the other guests all bundled into bg tour buses and drove away, leaving me stranded in the rain with noone to talk to and no idea if the taxi driver had even left yet. Not wanting to be left there on my own after dark in the pouring rain I showed the hotel card to one of the security guards who got the gist of what I wanted and called up the hotel for me before letting me wait in his office til a taxi arrived.

I shared a taxi with two other passengers who I am not entirely sure why they were there, but the security guard seemed to think it was ok and if this really was my taxi then to send it away meant walking back on my own, which really wasn't a attractive option, so I put my trust in their hands and hoped for the best. Fortunately although I had to pay for the taxi ride back, which meant that possibly it was not my original or intended taxi, but I was back much sooner than expected and I had time to find a bite to eat.

There was a small restaurant just around the corner from the hotel and here the owner greeted me warmly as I entered and whisked the menus that were on the table away before returning with ones that had some english translation on. I ordered the prawns and some noodles and hoped for the best. What arrived first was the prawns, but these prawns were very much like the fish I had yesterday, in that there was an entire mountain of them all complete with heads, tails, shell and feelers still intact and the way they were cooked meant that every feeler was like a small needle that had to be chomped and crushed else it would stab up into my mouth and cause a whole lotta pain.

After devouring the colony of shrimps I headed back to my hotel where I crashed or the night.