10-04-2005

This hotel was the lowest of those we've stayed. Still very nice. No coffee pot in the room... big minus!!! But it did come with condoms. No roaches, but we did have little lizards. It’s a short stay with early checkout after late arrival so it really doesn’t matter. We bussed to the Li (Lijang) river and took a boat ride up through the interesting mountain formations. Many of the Chinese watercolor paintings you see are based on the scenery here. There's lots of activity on the river with tourist boats and local rafts made of 4 bamboo shoots. Kids would swim to the boat and hitchhike by grabbing onto the tires lashed to the sides. Trinket merchants rowed to the boat and tied on, peddling their wares... Leslie purchased some cute little junk to use for our Christmas tree. The boat had a local/regional beverage called Snake Wine. It actually has snakes in the bottle! Of course I had to sample it - I believe I was the only one of our large group who was brave / foolish enough to do so. It didn't have much flavor, mainly just strong alcohol - like cheap vodka or Everclear. When we reached the end of the river cruise we docked at a town where... surprise again... you could buy more crippy-crap. L purchased 5 ducks for a dollar or so and who knows what else. There were locals who use cormorants for fishing (clip the wings and tie string around their necks so they can't swallow the fish). For a fee you could take their photo. I tried to sneak in a shot, but was caught and coughed up my 5 Yuan fee. We then took a long bus ride back to Guilin where I enjoyed a Chinese foot massage prior to the bus ride to the airport. Foot massage is a popular Chinese treat. While your feet soak in hot herbal water your legs are given a brisk rubdown. After drying your feet the serious part begins. The masseuse does a combination of rubbing and for lack of a better term knuckle gouging which borders on painful. The longtime masseuses have prominent calluses from doing this. Afterwards I had very happy feet!