NYWOMAN -

I can understand feeling overwhelmed. There are many wonderful places to visit in China and your trip is more complicated by covering three countries. I think the best advice I can give regarding itinerary is "less is more." Lots of travel is exhausting and I kept the idea in mind that I would return to China again, and therefore did not need to see everything on this trip.

Hope that helps.

Linda

<b><i> &quot;Then it was off to the internet place to catch up. When we descended the stairway beneath the market, we found a huge room filled with computers…&quot;
</i></b>

Hi Linda,

Could you please tell me where this internet place is located?

Thank you!

Monica

Hi Monica,

I can try, but believe me, it won't be easy to find. Here's what you do.

First turn right when you leave the Kapok Hotel and walk to the corner. Then cross the street (the one that runs in front of the Kapok where the night food market starts on the next block. I think it's called Donguamen St or something similar to that.) Then cross the other street that has the median strip with greenery and flowers. Now you should be standing in front of the Jaguar Restaurant. Walk past the Jaguar along the street divided by the green median until you come to an alleyway. Turn right into the alleyway and walk about a block in until you see the big food market on the right. Walk in the front door of the market, but don't go where the food is. Instead, look for a door to the right with a stairway. Go down the stairs and you should be at the Internet place.

You can now see why it took three days to figure out where this place was! People told us it was near the Jaguar, or near the market, but no one told us it was inside the market!


Linda

PS Hello to Shanghainese... how was the safari?

Linda -- I responded, pix too.

Shanghainese,

Thanks for the photographs... very good! As I have said previously, one of these days I'll take this text and integrate it with my photographs (which I must say are much better than I expected when I took them!)

Ok, then it becomes publishable as Rebecca expects, maybe it can be used in english textbooks for chinese students and I'll offer my help for the task.

Shanghainese - That sounds like an exciting offer. I would love that!

Rebecca keeps me on my toes. She writes me often and since I have volunteered to assist her with her English, I then send her back a set of &quot;corrections&quot; along with the responses to her email. I feel as though I have returned to my long-ago role as an English teacher.

Jasmine also keeps in touch and I also give her a set of corrections so she can get some on-line instruction. Although she would love to take English lessons, and although I know the lessons are very reasonable (Steve was taking them when we were there in April), she still can't afford them.

BTW I met a young woman from Tibet the other day. She is a senior at one of the &quot;WISE Schools&quot; and I asked her if she would like to earn some money as a Chinese tutor for me this summer. She said she would love to do that, so maybe my vocabulary of five words will grow some.

Linda

Hi Linda,

Shanghainese's offer made me very curious about your next plan. Are you really want to establish a book now?

Thank you for assisting me with my English, your &quot;corrections&quot; are really helpful to my learning, I think I can do better in my thesis next year with your help.

I also enjoyed your life through your mails, different from ours~~

I don't have any illusions that this is book material...just hope it's useful for people traveling to China. As an American interpretation of Chinese life, there might be pieces usable for an English textbook, as Shanghainese suggests. It would need to be reworked for that purpose... if there is indeed a market for such a thing.

I know you got the book idea, Rebecca, from Fried Eggs with Chopsticks. I loved that book, but my lowly TR is, in my opinion, a far cry from that level of travel writing.

I am truly looking forward to reading your Thesis next year!

Linda

Many people have asked me on both this Forum and Trip Advisor for the contact information for the guides mentioned in these posts. Here they are:

Lilly (Yangshuo/Guilin) - [email protected]

Violet (Beijing)- [email protected]
(also may be used to contact Kong Lin)

Jeff Zhang (Xi'an) - [email protected]

Clarence Guo (Xi'an) - [email protected]

Rebecca (Translator in Hangzhou) - [email protected]

Hope this is helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Linda

Nice post, Thanks Linda!

I just returned from Yangshuo. Was at the Magnolia hotel for 6 nights (lots of rain in June!). Lovely hotel. I used Lilly's services and can say that I was not at all disapointed.

She also charged me 100 Yuan/day for her services and the driver (yes, Mr. Tang-He is to young to be a Mr....) charged depending on the amount of driving.

Airport pickup-200 yuan, Li river + other minor excursions (Fuli, market, some other town (I can't rember) was 300 Yuan. Going all the way to Long Ji (Rice Terranec) 500.

Lilly was upfront and straight. She booked my Hotel for me and got a rate 50 Yuan less then the rate for the hotel on the web!

Alan

P.S. I don't get why we call the currency the RMB, everybody there calls it Yuan (1 Yuan = 1 RMB)

PSS. I also treated Lilly and Mr. T to lunches, when they picked the restaurant, the rate always seem to be much less that I would pay (ie Lunch at the place where the Li River cruise starts from was 32 Y for the three of us. (That's $10 US).

Alan,

Thanks for the report. I'm glad you put the amounts in for Mr. T. (he looks younger than he actually is!), but since Lilly called him Mr. Tang, that's what I called him (and I did try to pronounce his other name, but it didn't seem to work out).

We looked at the Magnolia, but decided to stay out of town... it was a tough call and I gave it many months of thought. Either choice is a good one. I've been reading about the rain and recently communicated with several people in the Yangshuo area since I was worried about them. They are accustomed to very wet weather at this time of year. I'm glad we went in April when we only had to contend with a few showers at the beginning and end of our visit.

Again, thanks for the update... glad it all worked out and you enjoyed Lilly and Mr. T.

Linda

According to my text book and teacher. Chinese people do not as a rule, unless they are close family members, or extremely close friends use first names. Even close colleagues use last names.

That would explain why Lilly (all our guides asked us to use the Western names they have adopted) called him Mr. Tang throughout our visit when referring to him and Jeff Zhang also referred to our driver as Mr. Leo.

Thanks, NYWoman!

Linda

Hi Lookimmune,

RMB is the abbreviation of &quot;Renminbi&quot;, &quot;renmin&quot; in Chinese means people, &quot;bi&quot; means money. In China, there are Yuan, Jiao, Fen in China(1 Yuan = 10 Jiao = 100 Fen), just like you have Dollar, Quarter, Dime, Nicke and Cent in America. When we buy things, we just say 1 Yuan but not 1 RMB, I think you'll just say 1 Dollar instead of 1 USD, right? We also call Yuan as Kuai, Kuai is often used as oral English.

Rebecca

Thanks for the clarification, Rebecca. So, Yuan is a unit of money, such as a dollar, and RMB would be equivalant to $US (i.e. it means Chinese money).

Linda

Topping for ducky2

Let me echo everyone's thanks for wiselindag's superb travelogue. Like her, I used Fodor's and meticulously planned a 3 1/2 week trip to China 4 years ago, bringing my then teenage girls -- and I also found the going generally pretty easy due to the friendliness of most Chinese people I met. Now I've just started planning a shorter trip for October, and am planning to go to Guilin, where we've not been - and I'm tentatively thinking we'll spend 3 nights at the Sheraton -- since it's so inexpensive and we hate having to pack and move very often.

I've written Lilly, the tourguide, and I'm wondering -- might it be realistic to leave Guilin early one morning, and drive both to Yangshuo and Long Ji in the same day? Is the longish sounding drive to Long Ji an interesting one, through nice terrain, maybe karst mountain scenery? I know that Yangshuo is probably a wonderful destination for a few days, itself, but we're a little too rushed on this trip to do it justice.

Also, what's the best way to do the boat trip up the Li to Yangshuo (which we think we'll do with some friends who will meet us the day after we've been to Long Ji). A few years back I recall people writing that they purchased the same boat tickets at the pier, rather than in advance, and they cost 80% less. What's the best way to get the tickets - and their cost - these days? How long is the trip, and is there any real difference among the various boats? If the trip is short, perhaps we'll arrange with Lilly to have her meet us in Yangshuo with our friends after the boat ride. Is Mr. Tang's car big enough for 6 people? I suspect he might be able to find a minivan for us if not.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

And, btw -- we used Clarence Guo as a guide in Xian in '04 -- no choice of restaurants then, but had a wonderful meal of endless varieties of dumplings in town -- and we also recommend him very highly. As a matter of fact, my wife just bemoaned the fact that, since we're not going back to Xian, we won't be seeing / using him again. If Lilly is as good as Clarence, which she sounds, that would be terrific.

Hi EdEdwards,

Thanks very much for your kind words. It has been a labor of love.

You ask, &quot;might it be realistic to leave Guilin early one morning, and drive both to Yangshuo and Long Ji in the same day?&quot; Wow - Yangshuo is in the opposite direction from Longji when traveling from Guilin. If you go to Long Ji, that's a long day's trip in itself. Yangshuo is another day (and preferably more than one.)

&quot;Is the longish sounding drive to Long Ji an interesting one, through nice terrain, maybe karst mountain scenery?&quot; It's fairly interesting driving to Long Ji. It takes about three hours each way to Long Ji and the karst mountains are in the other direction (surrounding Yangshuo). The first part of the drive out of Guilin isn't scenic at all. Then after about 45 minutes to an hour you get to the mountainous area where Long Ji is situated and you begin to pass some of the minority groups villages and rice terraces. It's a curvy trip up the mountain (Lilly takes medication for her stomach!). Once you get to the parking area, you have to hike the rest of the way up to where the great views are.

I can't comment on the boat trip from Guilin to Yangshuo since we elected to do the bamboo raft trip on the river instead of the big boat with lunch for big bucks. I'm sure others can provide ticketing information and the question has been asked on the Trip Advisor Boards more than once.

I'm sure it's cheaper to go down to the river and pick up tickets on the spot. The bargains are for the &quot;Chinese boats.&quot; That means the same scenery, but the narration will be in Chinese. I've read that the English-language boats are much more expensive. I think the trip from Guilin to Yangshuo on the big boats takes about 4 hours. I know they begin to arrive in Yangshuo about 1p.m. or 1:30 and there are over 50 boats.

Another option is to ask Lilly to arrange for you to be driven from Guilin to a spot on the river and then take the bamboo raft for the most scenic part. The trick with that is you have to avoid the big boats so you want to time it right.

Mr. Tang's car is a sedan that would seat no more than three people in the back (with Lilly and Mr. T. in the front), but I suspect he can get the use of a van or perhaps Lilly has another driver with a van. Ask her and she'll give you all the options.

In the sense of being well taken care of, I think you could compare Lilly favorably with Clarence. They both know their territory well and have things arranged very efficiently. Clarence is older and gives me the impression of being a professional tour guide. Although Lilly is also a professional tour guide, she's a little more casual... both excellent, just different styles. Of course, Clarence is quite a bit pricier than Lilly.

Hope this helps.
Best regards,
Linda

Thanks, Linda. I had my Guilin geography screwed up. Your description of the drive to Long Ji is helpful. My wife probably won't go for the winding roads much. Any places to stop along the way? Are the towns all very rural, farming communities?

Ed