Like with my Beijing posts, I’ll have brief daily recap for each day of the trip and then have separate posts for anything that requires more detail. (And no, I haven’t forgotten about Beijing. I’ll get to those eventually, but I’ll be drowning in work this week, so those might have to wait.)
Anyways, I had no chance of being late for our 5:30 AM meet-up because I pulled an all-nighter. Tired, but excited, I hopped onto a bus to Hong Qiao airport for our early morning flight to Guilin. At the Guilin airport, we met up with our tour guides for the trip, Jessie and Moy. Luckily, we had some time to rest on the bus during our two hour drive to Yangshuo.
Before lunch, we checked into the Magnolia Hotel, conveniently situated near one of the busiest parts of Yangshuo, West Street. The hotel (picture below) was good. Not as nice as the Jin Tai Hotel we stayed at in Beijing, but that was a 4-star hotel. Magnolia was clean and convenient, all we could ask for.
Hotel hallway
After a yummy lunch, we quickly prepared for the first of many fun activities: a mud bath. (Didn’t bring my camera, so no pictures from me). I didn’t know what to expect from the mud bath and I was even hesitant to try it, but I eventually did. The mud bath was in a water cave, which we first got a tour of before getting drenched in mud. The tour wasn’t that exciting and it was hard walking through a rocky cave wearing shower slippers.
The mud bath itself was pretty, well, disgusting. The floor at the bottom of the bath was not flat and each step felt like I was stepping in shit. The worst part, however, was cleaning it all off. There was only one shower and it was spewing out freezing water. It took me a few times to finally get rid of most of the mud. Luckily, we were able to relax in a nearby hot spring afterward, though it wasn’t as hot as I expected and it was pretty crowded.
The funny thing is, I don’t think the mud bath was the most exciting part of the day. The most exciting part had to be how we got to the water cave in the first place. We took three different buses/vans. It was only supposed to be two, but we had to switch a second time because of road work. The first time we switched, it was because we needed to get into a van that could handle the rocky roads. And rocky it was. We were bouncing around the car, nearly slamming our heads into the car ceiling every few minutes.
Back at the hotel, I took a thorough shower. Didn’t want any of that mud left on me. After relaxing a bit, we went to Cafe China to eat the first of 5 meals (1 dinner, 4 breakfasts). It wasn’t the best food, but it was good enough. After dinner, we walked around West Street, where most of the souvenir shops are. We eventually ended up at this drink place called Cafe HK that caught my eye when we were on the bus. I had a delicious orange peach slushie, which was a delightful end to a day in the hot Guilin weather.