Guilin - Day 8, 9 and 10

We take a boat through the Li River, one of the most beautiful stretches of Guilin to Yangshuo. It is a small town propped by tourism. Our experience here is mixed as the travel agent we used to make bookings turns out to be a petty sort of person and our supposed 4 star accommodations are more like a 2 star. That part of the trip was the most disappointing. For the readers of this blog, the travel agent we used was Lotus Travel Inc, they do alot of trips for families with adopted children. From our experience and how we were treated, highly un-recommending them.

We did take the kids to see the river show which has a beautiful stage among the surrounding mountains, it has a cast of over 600 people which are mainly local fishermen by day. By this time 2 adults are not feeling so good and with our hotel room being a pit, we head back to the city and check into the Shangri la, which is newly opened. Along the way we do stop at to watch the river boats catch fish for their owners. The birds have a string around their neck which prevent the fish from going down.

Our last day, the kids attend Wushu one last time, by which time, they have started to make friends, esp. Nate, whom several Chinese boys would come up to him.

China is really quite “rough” but the discrepancy between the Shangrila (where we spent a nite because of the dispute with the travel agent) and how the locals live is really hard to describe. At dinner time, the coffee house was booked out as the rich Guiliners came out to eat in the cool air conditioned hotel, it was not cheap but they were full. In the morning, I walk across the street to see the vegetable farm of the farmer and chatted with him, he had such a beautiful crop of vegetables. The kids had a great time but the adults are worn down and really looking forward to home, I think with kids a max of 7 days in China is enough, 5 is probably about right.

The flight we took was a Guilin - KL flight, it was raining when we left and we stayed on at Terry's house for the night before heading back to Singapore. The kids had a great time there too, 6 kids under a roof! Good home cooked food, dad brought durians... nice conversation with Terry and his new stories. Breakfast of yummy nasi lemak before the drive home which went by quickly when you have good friends to chat with.