Although I have planned for this trip as early as March, two things seemed to threaten my plan.
One was of course the H1N1 pandemic. Practically everyone I knew advised me to postpone the trip. Good thing I did not listen to them although they meant well!
The other was an advice from my feng shui master. He told me that the month of August was not a good month for me to travel especially out of the country. I would not be in the best of health and with the H1N1 threat, this really got me worried. I was also warned of the possibility of suffering from broken bones, bruises and cuts. And that I should avoid all water activities.
Looking at the itinerary planned by blogger Jam, we would be going on a river cruise, doing rafting and possibly kayaking! Now if I were to avoid all water activities, I might as well stay home!
So I just ignored all these advices. And guess what? Something happened during my rafting along the Yulong River in Guilin. Yes, I met with an accident! Oh, don't worry! I am back in one piece, but I'm still in pain over it now. That's the price to pay for throwing caution to the wind!
In fact, I had completely forgotten my feng shui master's warnings, until after the accident and Jam reminded me about it. I was like, Oh my God, so it was fated to happen!
I shall talk about the accident (even have photos to show!) in my future posts, but for now, let me bring you to my very first day in China.
AirAsia had only one flight daily from KL to Guilin and it was at 6.40am. I had to leave my house at 3.30am. Guess how many hours of sleep I got the night before? Well, I started packing only at night and by the time I finished, it was almost 2am! So my sleep was more like a short nap. Haha!
Fortunately, I did have some sleep on the 4 hours flight, although it was rather uncomfortable sleeping in the AirAsia plane.
Anyway, fast forward to China. My expectation of Guilin was somewhat like a small town with lots of mountains and very few modern buildings. And so I was rather surprised to find Guilin to be quite a modern city!
Look at the wide roads and busy street!
By the way, the name Guilin means "forest of Sweet Osmanthus". This is due to the large number of fragrant Sweet Osmanthus trees located in the city. Unfortunately, I did not realise this so I did not take notice of these trees!
I noticed that the people there like to ride on electric motorcycles like this lady in the photo below.
Wow! Didn't realise the Chinese are so environmentally friendly! Those electric bikes can zoom past you without making a sound. Pretty cool!
They even have dedicated lanes for cyclists and bikers. Not bad!
Oh, by the way, the night life in Guilin is pretty "happening".
Of course, this is only one part of Guilin. There are many other aspects of Guilin that make it a nice place to visit like its variety of hills formation, rivers, lakes, caves and parks. More photos in future posts! : )
After we arrived at the Guilin Liangjiang International Airport, we headed straight to the place where we would be staying for the next two nights. It took about half an hour to reach Guilin Backstreet International Youth Hostel.
Oh, you didn't think we would be staying at some 5 star hotels, did you? This was more like a backpacking trip for us, so no luxury hotels!
More on this hostel, why I think it sucks and is totally overrated, and our first dining experience in Guilin city in my upcoming post, so stay tuned!
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