Originally we wanted to go to Gurong Watertown last Sunday (see newsletter), but the evening before our tour-organizer informed us (surprise, surprise) that the town has closed its doors.

As it was too late to inform everyone we decided to start the tour as planned but make a little hike a little further down the original destination and visit the house of the family of a sunny hiking club member:

The first rays of sunshine are peaking through the clouds and temperatures are finally back in the double digits. What better way to celebrate than go pick some of the first strawberries of the season?

Those of you that subscribed to our newsletter (hint, hint) had the chance of joining us and the Sunny Hiker Group last Saturday to the strawberry fields in Daxu. If you missed the tour or had to work, here are some photos:

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)

China Hospitality News ran an article about the Tourism Department of Guilin Government opening the “the first tourist public service management body in China”:

“An official of the administration said that it will devise a plan for Guilin to build a public tourist system, establish tourist service centers and tourist distribution centers in downtown areas, promote a self-drive service system and the hire of recreational vehicles, and build a first class tourist public information service platform.”

While this is certainly a laudable effort to make Guilin, eh, … “better”, some open question remain:

First, we would really like to know how a “self-drive service system” is going to work if foreign driving licenses are still not accepted here. It is unlikely that this system is meant to be for bicycles only.

Second, we are a bit worried about the “distributing free promotional materials to tourists directly” part. It is not that we don’t like freebies but we don’t think that the Government should get involved into the daily turf wars between beggars, hawkers, “massaggi-ladies” and tricycle drivers for the last tourists that couldn’t escape into a nearby coffee shop.

Still, an improvement of the current situation in the Tourist Information (hardly anybody speaks English, no information material) will definitely benefit those visitors that want to explore Guilin and surrounding by themselves.

At this point we would like to point towards our partner page “Guilin Hiking” which will soon start to organize hiking trips again.

We have been quit for some time now, so if you where wondering what we were up to, here it is:

After the great success of our first joint Foreign/Chinese hiking tours we decided to give our hiking group its own platform.

On http://www.guilinhiking.com you can find from now on the announcements of the new tours as well as a list of previous tours. We also included a bbs-forum so people can meet, share photos and discuss.

As always, the Guilin Hiking tours are free of charge (you only pay for your own transport and food). Just sign-up and join us.

The “Sunny Hiker” Hiking Club is a group of Guilinese who come together from time to time to plan their own hiking trips in Guilin and the surrounding area.

The hiking leader, Mr. Johnson Xu, cordially invited the “Guilin Expat” population to join in the hikes and see a part of their chosen home that they may not experience otherwise. In his own words:

“Guilin is very popular and easy hiking place .You can find many hiking lines including river, hill and plain etc. For our local hikers, we don’t like the hot scenic place now. These places are too much commercial operation, so we design the hiking line by ourselves and seek for original and healthy points. After this, we connect those points in map and begin our hiking .We can use the mini money to earn max natural happiness. Sometimes we just spent thirty yuan per one hiking line.”

If you want to be informed about the next hikes scheduled, please click here and sign up for our newsletter. We will send out the route and description in time for you to decide to participate.

For some first impressions see the photos below, or go to the Photo Gallery for a more extensive collection of pictures.