Day 9 – Wednesday 11 April - Birthday Girl!

It’s Sonia’s birthday so we’d not set the alarm clock for the first time on the holiday.

We decided to take a stroll first. Our hotel is conveniently located on the West Street, with an array of riverside cafes and market stalls just outside its’ doorstep. There are only a few streets and all seem to connect so we made a short round trip. The beads on our brows made us realize just how hot the day had become.

We sat in an small bar and drunk Dragon Well Green Tea and Foam Black Tea with Rose and watched the river folk float about their business.

You know it’s a funny thing, after a while you don’t notice the enormous, unmissable mountain hills which pop up like huge thimbles, dotted around the town. It’s astonishing that such large landmarks simply fuse into the background until you look up specifically at them. And then they’re there, reassuringly waiting at the edge of the playground like old, wise, caring grand parents looking over us as we play on the rides. Despite the somewhat over-the-top multi-coloured fabric of the commercialized western streets, the town has a good feeling and the river holds an engaging attraction.

We travelled back to Guilin and Jim took us to chair lift up one of the karsks for a misty view of the city. From the top is bazaar formations which pushed up around and in the city were even more astonishing. It had to be the toboggan tide down again and Alec was getting used to this.

We watched the sun set on the lakes in the city and wandered into a traditional tea house of the lakes and enjoyed some more green tea before venturing into another Chinese food emporium with no English on the menus. It was, we, interesting.