According to the Bureau of Parks, Guilin will build four new free park, called Jingpingshan Park, Maoershan Garden Park, Lidong Park and Guilin Garden and Plants Park. The project is already in progress and planned to be finished in 2012. They are build to improve the ecological environment in the Wayao Area, Qintan Area, West of Putuo Area and in the north of Guilin city. They are also planned to be leisure places for residents.

Each of these four parks have their own characteristics. They are different from the other parks in Guilin. The Jingpingshan Park will be made an island park including Douji Mountain, Jingping Mountain, Dazhou and 10 small islands. The park will be located in the Wayao Area in the south of Guilin.

Maoershan Garden Park will be a future flower park. With the Maoer Mountain as the center, it divides into an Orchid viewing area, an Orchid historical and cultural district, a Green Mountain Recreation Area and an Orchid cultivation and breeding area.

Lidong Park will include the Dongjing Nursery and some of the land of the Garden Construction Company. As there are a lot of universities close by it is planned to be a “sports park”. It will include many fitness equipments for the youth.

Guilin Garden and Plants Park will be build as a exotic and friendly “Garden City Style”.

These four free park and another 17 new roads will frame the outer city from all four directions. They are also believed to increase the value of land at the outskirts of the city for possible development.

source: http://news.guilinlife.com/news/2010/06-19/116079.html

Last monday we took a car to Huangyao, which is about 200km away from Guilin. We started early in the morning so we were lucky enough to arrive before the hordes of tourists.

Huangyao is a well preserved, around 1000 years old settlement. As many others it has already been blessed with being discovered by mass tourism which lead to a rather hefty entrance fee of RMB70 per person. Still, I would say it was worth the money.

Inside the compound, Huangyao is way better than other places like Yangshuo or Daxu. Of course there are little stalls selling fake antiques and Mao-Bibles, but it is much more laid back. Nobody tries to pull you into their shops. I bought a traditional dress for my little daugther and paid only RMB 20 without much bargaining.

Should you go there, remember to bring some snacks. While you can get pickled veggies and cooked eggs easily, there are not many restaurants. (Actually, we saw only one).  To finish this rather short report, here are some photos: (For more photos please visit our Huangyao Photo Gallery)

“Lifechangingtravel” just reviewed the list of world’s most threatened tourist sites.

For Yangshuo they had the following to say:

“Now the town attracts more than three million visitors a year – more than it can easily sustain,” the magazine stated.

However, there are steps those on a gap year in China can take to ensure their visit does not have a detrimental effect on the locale, it added.

These include hiring a bicycle and pedalling through the nearby hamlets, hiking through the mountains or rock-climbing, rather than using too much transport.

We have one more suggestions to give: Don’t go there at all!

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Seriously, why does everyone want get on a cramped, overpriced tourist boat, get carted down the Li River while getting the membranous blasted out by the obnoxious tour guide explaining sites through his megaphone? When arriving in Yangshuo you’re directly greeted by an armada of hawkers, beggars and looky-looky people that will follow you on your whole trip.

The city itself, while situated in a REALLY beautiful setting,   doesn’t have much to offer either… that means, except you want to buy bags full of souvenirs.

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Yes, you could rent a bike and escape to the country side, but why not directly go off the beaten track and visit something less spoiled by modern mass tourism?

There are so many places around that are worth a visit: Xing’an,  Daxu,  Xiong Cun, Liang Jiang, just to name a few.  You will get less hawkers, better food and a real glimpse at country life in China.

This year bathing season has started. Like every year in June the crowds are going to the Li-River and the traders are trying to make a buck by selling swimming supplies.

Here some pictures:

Last Friday me and Lisa decided to take advantage of the good weather (a nice cool breeze, and not raining) to go out to the Tea Plantation. We could have taken number 10 Bus, but we were lazy and shed out the 20 kuai for a taxi.

The Plantation itself is located a bit outside of Guilin in a beautiful serene landscape. The first thing when you enter the compound is an old wood-build house in the middle of a small tea field. I think it is used as restaurant now (there are fish ponds directly next to it, where you can catch your own fish).

We were greeted by the guide who showed us around the plantation and explained how tea is harvested and which part of the tea plant is used for which kind of tea.

After that we went into the main building to join a tea ceremony and try all the teas that she talked of before. My personal favorite is still the Ginseng Woolong tea. Lisa later bought one packet in the tea shop to bring it home.

The whole tea tour is free for visitors. They later try to make some money by selling the tea, but they are absolutely not pushy. If you don’t like to buy, nobody forces you. I’ve done the tour about 5 times now, and this time was definitly not the last.

After leaving the tea plantation, we didn’t directly walk back to the main road, but took a small path along the tea fields and around the plantation. After crossing a small stream we were directly on the property of the old Ming Tombs of the Jingjiang Princes. This part of the area has not been restored and looks like nobody visited it for quite some time (The grass sometimes went up to our neck). If you walk around a bit in the huge area, you will find many old statues and other broken remnants of the graves of the Ming Princes.

One of the tombs actually has been restored by the government, but the entrance fee for seeing two restored gate houses and a hill of mud is not really worth it.

If you have time, and you’re not afraid of a bit dirt and mosquito bites, playing “Indiana Jones” and discovering the unrestored part of the tombs is much more satisfying.

For more information regarding the tea plantation, please visit their website: http://www.guilintea.com/

On March 22 the construction of the official “Flying Tigers” Memorial Park has begun in the outskirts of Guilin. The park area will include the remains of the former Yangtang airfield where the volunteer group, commanded by General Claire Lee Chennault, has been stationed from October 1941 to the end of the war. The group consisted of 99 pilots, 200 ground crew man and 10 army flight instructors which were hired as check pilots for Chinese cadets. Several of these would ultimately join the AVG’s combat squadrons. The group derived their name from the brightly colored paintings on their airplanes. While the actual average strength of the AVG was never more than 62 combat-ready pilots and fighters, Chennault’s strategy, also called “Chennault’s fighter doctrine” proved to be highly successful against the Japanese airforce. On 297 destroyed enemy planes, they only lost 14 pilots. The US$ 23 million project will include the reconstruction of the command post and barracks as well as a museum. There is a second small “Flying Tigers”Museum in the mountainous area around Guilin, consisting of the wreckage of a downed B24, dragged out of the mountain it crashed into. The museum was privately taken care of and currently does not have English descriptions. It is not known if the two places will be combined after the park opens to the public. Here a link to the original news in Chinese and here a link to the official web-page of the Flying Tigers Heritage park

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