KFC Here We Come

Friday, October 14th

This was our travel day to the southern Chinese city of Guilin.  We had read that Guilin is a "small" Chinese city.  By this, I mean it officially only has a population of 750,000.  But then we found out the Guilin metro area has more like 5 million.  Even then, it's still considered small by Chinese standards.

So driving in from the airport, I was really impressed with the countryside seemed relatively uninterrupted -- and that the air seemed clean.  This impression changed once we got into Guilin itself, which has quite a bit of noise and traffic.  It was certainly less overwhelming of a city than Beijing, but I realized that you just have to recalibrate when you are dealing with a country with the immense population like China.

We had a great room at the Riverside with our own bathroom and balcony with a view of the Li River -- all for the equivalent of about $30.  After getting settled, we were pretty tired and didn't want to venture too far, so we ended up a couple of streets away where there was night market.  We had dinner in one of the restaurants -- with English on the menu! and pictures! -- and tried one of the local specialities: Li River fish cooked in beer.

Saturday, October 15th

In the morning, we were picked up by a van that took us to a bus that took us to a boat.  All of this was for our trip down the Li River.  I have to say that China is very good with its organized tours (at least the ones we experienced.)  The one involved a four-hour boat ride down the Li to the "village" of Yangshao. This entire region is spectacular.  It's famous for its natural beauty -- mountains, rivers, etc. -- so much so that a scene of the Li River is on the back of their 20 yen note.

As I mentioned, the tour ended in the "village" of Yangshao.  This was another time that I was reminded to recalibrate my expectations for the size of things.  Yangshao has about 100,000 residents, and then is visited by 15 million people a year.  Lonely Planet says it is the jumping off point for all things outdoorsy in the region.  That means also that there are tons of Western-aimed, tourist-oriented shops and restaurants.

We only stayed there about an hour before we left in a van (again) to what truly fell into my definition of a village.  In this village, we were able to get rides on a bamboo raft.  There were some contrived things set up for our benefit, like a demonstration of how they use cormorants to fish and a herd of water buffalos waiting for us to pet them.  But overall, it was nice and relatively calm.  While it was a bit manufactured, it did seem like we saw a little sample of how people in the small villages live.

When we finally got back to Guilin, we were exhausted.  And this is when we experienced our high or low culinary point -- depending on your point of view.  We went to KFC for dinner.  Let me preface this by saying I don't think I've been to a KFC since I was a kid and thought their mashed potatoes and gravy were the best thing ever.  However, after putting in lots of effort finding restaurants in China, it was like a dream.  Absolutely the best chicken sandwich/french fries/7-up meal I have ever had.