老外 means white foreigner; think gringo in Spanish
Well, three weeks ago, I boarded an eleven-hour train to Guilin, China (桂林) on my 20th birthday. So, unless you call a hot cup noodle on board of the sleeping car of a Chinese train, with Chinese men crowding around the smoking ends a celebration, my birthday hat, cake, and candles had an early retirement on the top bunk of a claustrophobic bunker cell. Sorry, forgot to take any pictures.
Well, three weeks ago, I boarded an eleven-hour train to Guilin, China (桂林) on my 20th birthday. So, unless you call a hot cup noodle on board of the sleeping car of a Chinese train, with Chinese men crowding around the smoking ends a celebration, my birthday hat, cake, and candles had an early retirement on the top bunk of a claustrophobic bunker cell. Sorry, forgot to take any pictures.
Anyway, we arrived into Guilin at 6:30AM to sight of Chinese cab drivers, smoking outside the train station, trying to pick up riders. The usual sightseeing in Guilin: caves with portions that resembles terrified animals, hills that resemble elephants or camels, and general natural landscapes that resembles something ordinary. In China, nature just can't stay nature; it's only amazing if it resembles something, preferably an animal.
See the resemblence to an elephant? Now, that's amazing.
Camel, any one?
This portion of the cave resembles this:
Really, now?
So after walking through two caves that were lit with neon lighting and read descriptions such as the one above, we realized that the tourism board was most definitely high when they approved this. Only explanation.
After a day in Guilin, we took a bus to Yangshuo, where this fare lady on the bus thought she could fool the laowai and the huaqiao (overseas ethnic Chinese). So thinking that the fare was 10 RMB a person, we handed her a twenty, which she then hollered into our ears, that it was 15 RMB per person. So when we were pulling odd objects out of our pockets looking for a ten RMB bill, the lady uncleverly pulls a 10 RMB bill to the front of her stack of money so that whenwe hand her our additional 10 RMB bill, screams again in our ears "Oh, only twenty dollars here total." Already irritated by the fact that she was probably overcharging us, we both burst out in Mandarin, screaming that "you're conning us"; "I saw you move that ten over; no I gave you twenty already." Ugh! She's finally backed down, saying that she wasn't going to argue with us and then walks back to the front of the bus. China... *shakes head
Yangshuo, which reminded me of Aquas Calientes at the valley of Machu Picchu, survives off of the foreign and Chinese tourists who come for the sights of the grassly peaks over looking the Li River. Gorgeous, by the way! On day one, we ended up taking a bamboo raft ride on the Li River for 40 RMB total for 40 mins. In other currencies then, 6 USD for a slightly hefty Chinese man, smoking a cigarette, to pull an artificial bamboo boat up and then down the stream again for 40 mins. Sounds like a deal! Day two, we rented an electric bike because confession! I doubt that I can ride a bicycle. I know you never forget but do you really remember if you only probably rode a bicycle successfully for five minutes once when you were seven. Yup, doubts.
Location: Hong Kong, Hong Kong
