Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine September 2016 | Page 89

Travel | Guilin
© Sean Pavone / Shutterstock

Travel Tips - Get Around

City Bus
Getting a local map from a tourist
guide or shop is a good idea. This will
show the location of most of the sights
as well as details of bus routes. Buses are
an ideal way to get around Guilin on
a budget. All the buses starting with #5
are free. A useful one is bus 58, which runs
from the train station (and bus station)
to many of the attractions.
Ada baiknya Anda mengambil peta
dari pusat informasi turis. Peta tersebut
biasanya berisi tempat wisata dan rute bus.
Cara hemat berkeliling Guilin adalah
dengan bus. Semua bus yang bermula
dengan #5 adalah gratis. Bus 58 paling
praktis karena memiliki rute dari stasiun
kereta (dan terminal bus) ke sejumlah
tempat wisata.

No visitor to Guilin
should fail to escape the
city into the surrounding
countryside. Perhaps the
best way to do so is to board
a sightseeing boat for the
80km trip down the Li River

Trunk Hill, Folded Brocade Hill, Old Man
Hill and Solitary Beauty Peak. The latter name
comes from an ancient poet who described the
hill as “the peak that shines in full glory by itself,
high above the surrounding landscape”.
Nowadays there’s a slight irony in this
description since, despite the 300-step climb to
the summit, the hill is crowded with gawping
visitors. At its foot is a melancholy gateway, all
that remains of a 14th-century palace built here
by an emperor’s nephew.
The highlight of Guilin, however, might be Reed
Flute Cave, an enormous subterranean labyrinth
of interconnecting chambers that range from
small grottoes to an enormous cavern used as
an air-raid shelter during the Second World War,
though romantically named the Crystal Palace
of the Dragon King. Nowadays the caves are lit
with multicoloured lights. Gossipy tour guides
will relate mythical stories to explain the cave

Hire a Driver
Another inexpensive way to take a day
trip to scenic spots around Guilin is to get
a driver for a whole or half day. Off-season
a whole day is about ¥100, half is ¥50.
Most hotels or hostels arrange this service,
and will also tell the driver where you want
to go if you don't speak Chinese.
Cara hemat lainnya untuk menikmati
tempat-tempat wisata di Guilin adalah
dengan menyewa sopir untuk satu atau
setengah hari. Bila tak musim libur, sewa
sopir untuk satu hari sekitar ¥100, dan
setengah hari ¥50. Banyak hotel atau
hostel yang memberikan layanan seperti
ini. Anda bisa menyebutkan destinasi yang
ingin dikunjungi ke sopir, jika Anda tak
bisa berbahasa Tiongkok.

A cormorant fisherman
and his birds on the Li
River at Yangshuo.

87

complex’s wondrous collections of stalactites
and stalagmites. One large stalactite is said
to represent a scholar who ventured to write
a poem worthy of the cave’s beauty. After many
weeks, he had only managed a couple of suitable
lines, and was eventually turned to stone
for his efforts.
No visitor to Guilin should fail to escape
the city into the surrounding countryside.
Perhaps the best way to do so is to board
a sightseeing boat for the 80km trip down
the Li River to the village of Yangshuo, surely
one of the world’s most scenic journeys.
Slow boats take five or six hours, departing
from Guilin in the early morning. The river
meanders through the surrounding mountains,
straight into a dream world. Han Yu, a 19thcentury poet, famously described the river as
being like a green gauze ribbon between
mountains like blue jade hairpins. Huge clumps
of bamboo lean over the water, buffalo wallow
and puff on the riverbanks, and village children
splash in the shallows. Despite the alien-looking
landscape, this region has long been thoroughly
domesticated, with passing valleys closely
cultivated and dotted with mud-brick farms.
On arrival at Yangshuo, tour groups are
generally herded through the village and
driven back to Guilin in coaches. It would
be a big mistake, however, not to budget
a couple of days in which to stay in Yangshuo,
where the pace of life is much slower than in
Guilin, and whose surrounding landscapes are
nothing short of superb. The old town retains