15th Feb 2010

Guilin was cold but not so rainy on the second day of Chinese New Year. The entrance of Lixin Fandian was still littered with the remnants of firecrackers. Nobody believed in sweeping away their own fortunes. I checked out early that morning and took Bus 11 to the bus station on the advice of the security guard at the hotel. It was a short and relatively comfortable ride that only cost me Y1.

I arrived once more at the provincial capital of Guangxi at midday. Langdong Bus Station was relatively deserted compared to the mildly chaotic situation 2 days before Chinese New Year. Not familiar with the local buses, I took a taxi to the city which cost me Y37. Along the way, the taxi driver called all his friends and spoke in Cantoses: “Go to Longdong (Langdong), make more today.”

I checked into Ying Bing Fan Dian. Y80 was a steal for a very nice single room with hot water, heater, computer, TV and electric kettle. Unlike the old China, all these things actually worked. Surprisingly, my ATM card didn’t work at the usual place - China Construction Bank. Pleasantly and surprisingly, it worked at ABC - Agricultural Bank of China.
Cool.

The taxi ride from Langdong Bus Station was a
scary Y37. I decided to try out the buses and soon discovered that Bus 213
goes to Langdong for only Y2. After lunch at Do & Me - a cool and trendy fast
food place that served fusion food (beef steak with rice, fried sphaghetti etc),

I took a casual ride on Bus no. 32, all the way to the terminal, Qing Xiu
Shan. It’s a very well-manicured park on a hill, thronged with Chinese tourists. Many areas of the park were still under construction. They were building a very attractive pavillion-like sheltered path to the top of the hill. There was a fair going on at the top of the hill and many stalls were promoting luohan guo drinks.

There was also an obstacle course and you can see Chinese people of all ages trying them out even though some of the obstacles were obviously of “military standard”. In Singapore, parents would be screaming at their kids if they ever got near one of these things.

Near the foot of the hill, was a little food fair. Yes, more “fusion” here from almost every province. And yes, the usual take a picture
on a camel, noodle stalls, luo han guo drink stalls … Most interesting, were
the kebab stalls manned by Uyghur and Mongolian men. Dressed in their
traditional costumes, they danced to the music as they turned the skewers. I was
fooled into buying some of that kebab. After tasting it, I wondered if the main
cost of running the stalls came from the salt that they virtually dumped on the
meat. Either that or they seasoned the meat in the Dead Sea. My throat was completely salted out on the second skewer.

Luckily, there was Do & Me. Sphaghetti for dinner and an elderly gentleman there complained that the sphaghetti was not Italian enough. Lord Buddha. Is this really China? I took a walk in the park that evening and found some old folks dancing there. One old lady was probably in her 80s. Scenes like this may make the young and inactive feel guilty.

There are glittering malls and impressive condo projects sprouting all over Nanning. And this is one of the poorer provinces in China. Nanning may be a great place to shop for necessities, but
there is little attraction for nature lovers. I planned to visit Detian
Waterfall the next day.