Day 10 and 11: Kunming to Guilin

Our last day of the Yunnan tour was yesterday! It was bittersweet because we were off to new adventures but had to leave behind new friends. I really enjoyed all the people on our tour, and having a group of 9 was quite intimate. All the older people took care of us and were quite entertaining. And our guide Kwan was especially helpful and nice to us, so I hope to keep in contact with him.

Our last day with the tour was quite short. After a late breakfast, we went to Dr. Tea to have a tea tasting. The couple and mom in our group both bought A LOT of tea, almost emptying out the store. It was fun to taste the local teas though- Puh'er is the most famous from this region. It's quite fragrant and a little bitter to me, I prefer Jasmine tea. MMM.

We had a quick lunch and then went to a coffee store and flower market. Here's a picture of our last meal. It was pretty tasty. There was a sweet and sour fried fish, mantou breads and condensed milk, veggies, chicken, and a medicinal chicken broth in the middle.
And here's a picture of some crazy flowers I saw. I thought it was real at first, but the base is the only real part. They just glued the toppings to make it say that. So tricky!

After the tour group took off for the airport we were left to fend for ourselves. We wandered around the hotel area looking for postcards but had no luck. A lot of people were out on the street selling Chinese flags and t-shirts saying "I love China" in preparation for the Olympic Torch Relay to pass through. I wonder when that will be...

We spent 4 hours at the hotel using their internet and having drinks in the lobby and then headed to the train station around 6. We found our train without problems though the train area was super sketchy and of course we drew a lot of attention with our huge bags and our clueless faces.

The train ride was surprisingly not painful at all. The car was just as I rememebered it from 2 years ago when I rode it from Xi'an to Chengdu with the PLU group. It was also quite cheaper to ride the train than to fly to Guilin- only $380 remminbi (around $60usd), which is less than half an airplane ticket and somewhat better for the environment (or so I keep telling myself). Here's what the car looked like:The car provided a hot water thermos, pillows and blankets for each bed, and some cute flowers on the table. We had 3 soft-sleeper beds to ourselves, and nervously waited for a 4th person to join our car. We grew nervous at every stop (there were about 10 throughout the night) but thankfully, no one joined us, which was a good thing since the extra bed was full of our luggage and extra blankets. Luckily, the 18 hour train ride passed by quickly. We spent the day just talking and enjoying the scenery. Here's a nice picture of a power plant I saw. It looks pretty polluting to me :(
Anyways, we slept around 1am and woke up at 10, happy to have slept off half of the trip. I slept on the top bed, which was quite the experience.

And when we arrived in Guilin, it was pouring. Yay!.... It seems as if the rain just follows us. It rained in Hong Kong, Kunming, Dali, and even Lijiang so naturally it'd rain in Guilin, too. We managed to find a nice coffee bar to spent 3 hours in. Here's a picture of the food I had for lunch. It was pretty tasty. After lunch, we rode a taxi and met the tour group at the airport. There are 27 people in this group! It's pretty huge and different compared to the Hong Thai one, but I'm excited to see Guilin and Yangshou, and our new tour guide Billy is also very nice. I hope I get the chance to update again soon but if now, I'll be back at this hotel in 3 days. Yay for free wireless!

-b