guilin.

we arrived safely in Guilin at about 6am, and we were immediately accosted by several travel agents telling us to buy tour packages or sleep in a certain hotel.  since we didn’t really have a set plan in place, we just went with it and ended up getting a surprisingly nice hotel room considering the cost {100 CNY or about $16}.  we also booked a tour through yangshuo and guilin to see the beautiful mountains and caves that are abundant in this area of china. 

one downside of the tour was that both on the way to and from our final destination we stopped several times to hear marketing pitches from local vendors.  one in particular liked to talk really loud and blew cigarette smoke in our faces.  not a big fan of that.  but we saw the karst mountains and the dragon caves, which were incredible.  when we finally got back to our hotel, we were too exhausted to go out {not to mention a little unsure of our surroundings and maybe a little scared?} so we just stayed in a watched a cheap dvd we bought off a street vendor.

p.s. – the shower had absolutely no hot water…so yeah. good thing china is so stinking hot, so it didn’t take much to warm back up.

p.p.s. - chinese people are so funny.  instead of keeping the caves looking natural, they decide to light it up with bright colorful lights.