China in your hands part 2 – From a travel agents view!

I finished off my last blog talking about Beijing, Shanghai, Xian and Hangzhou but I’ve also been to some other amazing places in China.

In this part 2 I will talk about my experiences in Guilin and Kunming. Both cities are inland and not easily reachable by cruise but would be great places to see as a larger tour of the country.

Guilin

First of all this is one of the most scenic places I’ve travelled to.  Within the city itself Elephant trunk hill is a great place for a walk around. Guilin is made up of a lot of karst formations in and around the city and this is no different, here we climbed up to the top of the hill with views out over the Li river. The Elephant trunk is a rock which overhangs and is the shape of an elephants trunk.

Aside from that the city itself is very leafy and has the feel of a big extended park. There are also a few big lakes within the city and overlooking these are the wonderful sun and moon pagodas which sit neatly next to each other. These are particularly wonderful to see at night.

Outside of the centre of Guilin another mainly tourist town is Yangshou is the main draw to see the incredible Unesco heritage area of the Li river and karst mountains and hills that surround it. The town itself is mainly setup for tourism and the streets are full of street sellers selling charcoal paintings with the local scenery and other souvenirs. The area out here is quite rural so a bit of a contrast to Guilin in that there aren’t big high rise buildings and some of the streets are cobbled, a lot of Chinese cities are extremely modern and full of big buildings and Guilin even though not as built up as most is a big contrast to Yangshou which is why people go here. Funnily enough the mountain scenery here was used in the Star Wars films as the home of Chewbacca and the wookies and it is on tv as I type! 

We took a boat trip down the river from Yangshou and got some stunning photos of the mountains, another feature of the area is how the locals use cormorants to fish, I got the chance to hold the cormorant on its rest on my back so quite a unique experience!

All round for scenery, Guilin and the area around is a must do for any complete China itinerary.

Kunming

Kunming is great because of the climate, it is in Yunnan province on the steps of the himalayas so you dont have to go too far to get to Tibet and massive mountains, although we didnt get quite that far up when I was there. We stopped here enroute into Laos and what was great about the city after being in Guilin and the central China climate in June was that the temperature was much cooler here. The weather here is very stable so it is known as the eternal spring city and that was no different when we were there as the temperature was what I would describe as just right, especially after the searing humidity I’d experienced elsewhere in China.

In the city itself there are some nice temples like the Yuantong temple and golden temple. The city also has a lively night life and it was great to be somewhere without the burning heat and humidity for a night out! Being on the western side of China Kunming is somewhat of a melting pot of cultures as it is near South east asia, not too far from the borders with Vietnam and Laos (where we were travelling towards) as well as Burma and Tibet.  

The main thing we went to see whilst here was the Shilin “stone forest” this is another Unesco world heritage site and a very unusual thing to see.

Basically the site is a series of karst stones, much like Guilin except here they are formed into spikes hence the “stone forest” as altogether the stones come together like trees, you could be forgiven for thinking it was all put together by someone by looking at it but it is entirely natural! We spent the day walking around amongst the “trees”, in places there was a bit of climbing involved as this area goes on for miles but is well managed by the Chinese authorities so was a really pleasant way to see this amazing natural phenomenon.

So I’ve travelled to most of the main cities in China and across almost from east to west as well. It is an amazing country that is getting more and more easy to travel to so get there whilst it hasn’t been completely taken over by Mcdonalds and Starbucks!!