Day 4, June 24th - to Guilin

We left Chengdu this morning for the airport. On the way there we could not believe how much new construction there was - as if an entire new city is being built. Just so many new high rises going up.

We caught our flight to Guilin - we were so much in the minority that on the entire plane there were 3 westerners, us and one girl from New Zealand. We arrived safely in Guilin and met our guide, Wei Li. We already love her. Wei Li is considered from the minority. Most Chinese, approximately about 92%, are Han people, the other are minority and there are, I believe, 55 groups of minority people. Wei Li is from the Zhuang group of minority people - the largest group of minority people. Her family lives up in the mountains and still have no electricity and there are no roads so you have to walk 5 hours before you get to a road. Her story about being a girl and obtaining an education is very interesting. Wei Li also told us about the other well known minority groups, the Miao, known for their amazing handicrafts and intricate silver headdresses, and the Yao people, known for the womens long hair which is only cut twice in their life.

We checked into our hotel - again, a very nice hotel and then we had a quick lunch. David succumbed to the lure of western food and ate spaghetti bolognese (thank you Marco Polo) We met Wei Li again at 3 p.m. and went to Reed Flute caves. These caves were beautiful - similar to Luray caverns in Virginia. It was nice and cool in the caves, not like the outside which was hot, hot, hot. We try to enforce a no whining policy about things that we are either forewarned about or can't control - such as knowing it would be hot and humid, but we did drink a lot of water and it was hot. After that we stopped at the South China Sea Pearl Exhibition Centre, i.e. pearl store! We did buy a pearl pendant for me and one for Indigo when she is older - I know, suckers!

After that we went to Elephant Trunk hill and had a lovely walk through the park and down to the water where you can see how the rock formation looks like a huge elephant with its trunk in the water. The park area was very beautiful and odes to the elephant were every where. We then returned to our hotel where we had an hour to shower and then we met Wei Li at the Chinese restaurant downstairs. We were very hungry and dinner was delicious. We had a very nice sort of sweet potato soup that had pork in it. We also had a lemon fish dish and a beef dish with some sort of delicious mushrooms. We also had a green vegetable and they brought out some kind of version of Chinese french fries. After dinner we chatted more with Wei Li. She has a three year old son so we were asking lots of questions about the rearing of children and I was asking how and when they started the potty training with the split pants. Her in-laws live with her and her husband and help care for her son. There is too much interesting stuff to note here but we really enjoyed the very free conversation. Wei Li has also been keen to ask us a lot of "personal questions" as she says.

We then went down this city waterway system which has all been newly developed since 1998. Just amazing and beautiful. We took a boat ride and all along the boat ride was music playing, tea houses on the shores, beautiful landscaped edges all with the trees lit up and seating areas along the water. We also were there to see the fisherman with their cormorants. The fisherman stand on a raft essentially made of about 5 huge bamboo sticks put together. They stand up and have, it seems, about 4 cormorants on each raft. The cormorants dive for fish and bring them back to the boat. Their throats are tied with a string so that they can't swallow the fish. The fisherman then pulls the fish out of their beaks. There were gorgeous fountains that were rising and falling to music - the whole boat ride was very pleasant. We also had a lot of fun talking to Wei Li and another male guide who was there with an English couple who were seated at our table. The Chinese have terrific humor and we were all laughing and having a lot of fun. We returned to our room and pretty much crashed. Tomorrow we leave for the Li River cruise.