poled along. Cormorants tethered on wooden perches in the shallows waited for their night’s fishing. Cormorants cost 1000 yuan and are very valuable servants. They are taken fishing after dark each night, and perch on one end of a raft boat while a woven basket for the fish sits on the other. The cormorant catches large quantities of fish, but a ring on his neck stops him swallowing them. Poor bird.
Water buffalo were being brought to the water’s edge for their morning baths. Later, in the warm afternoon, we saw them standing contentedly with just their heads and necks sticking out of the river. Now and then a baby buffalo, too small to stand in the water, lay draped across his mother’s back. Great flocks of village ducks roamed free and returned home under their own steam at night.
My fellow passengers included an interesting English couple who were working in Hong Kong, and their two well-behaved children. The boat’s engine made a hell of an uproar, so all conversation was shouted. Everyone commented on the Chinese habit of spitting. I said, ‘The day I get the urge to spit, that’s the day I go home.’ But I felt it was coming. All the pollution gave you a funny nose and throat.
We travelled a distance and then came to the mountains that make the scenery of this area of south China famous. I was now in the world of classical Chinese landscape paintings. The strangely shaped limestone peaks did not rise gently, there were no foothills or slopes leading up to them. They leaped long and thin straight out of the flat earth and sat alone, pointing to the clear blue sky. The unique formation of these moody mountains goes back several hundreds of million years to when this area was under the sea and an upheaval raised its status to that of dry land. Later it was flooded, then lifted again in more cataclysmic events. The alternating sea water and air created karst limestone formations that, vulnerable to erosion, evolved into pinnacles and caverns. Local people call them fascinating names – ‘elephant trunk’ and ‘moon hill’. Thanks to the mountains’ caves, Guilin and the surrounding district became the headquarters of those Chinese who resisted the Japanese during the second world war.
Our boat plodded on. We seemed to be the only one going in this direction, but after three hours we began passing boats that came from the opposite direction of Guilin. The trip up-river against the flow was slower than coming downstream, which was why the jet setters stayed in Guilin and did the trip vice versa.
The tourist boats were floating palaces compared to ours. They were loaded with fat cats dripping cameras, some of whom began photographing us. I thought this was weird, but then some tourists feel obliged to photograph everything in sight, even other tourists. Perhaps we looked colourful to them. The fat cats had, however, been fed. The hostel cook had offered me a sandwich to take with me. It had cost twice the regular price because it contained cheese. Kraft Cheddar, in fact. I was shown the label and told proudly, ‘From Australia’. The slices of cheese tasted quite elderly and had been shaved off with a razor and put between thick old bread with no butter. Thank heavens I had not allowed the cook to toast it, as he had been determined to do, or it would have been a piece of rock.
Another hour later we turned around to come back. This was our first mistake. Our driver saw a mate on the shore who offered him some grapefruit. He took the boat in close to the shore to collect them and on the way back out we ran aground on some rocks. When I saw our captain start to take off his shoes I thought he was abandoning ship. No going down bravely with the vessel for him! But then he made us also take off our shoes and jump into a couple of feet of water to help him push the boat off. At last we freed the boat, but then it wouldn’t steer straight. The rudder was bent. Back into the water we went again to push the
Water buffalo were being brought to the water’s edge for their morning baths. Later, in the warm afternoon, we saw them standing contentedly with just their heads and necks sticking out of the river. Now and then a baby buffalo, too small to stand in the water, lay draped across his mother’s back. Great flocks of village ducks roamed free and returned home under their own steam at night.
My fellow passengers included an interesting English couple who were working in Hong Kong, and their two well-behaved children. The boat’s engine made a hell of an uproar, so all conversation was shouted. Everyone commented on the Chinese habit of spitting. I said, ‘The day I get the urge to spit, that’s the day I go home.’ But I felt it was coming. All the pollution gave you a funny nose and throat.
We travelled a distance and then came to the mountains that make the scenery of this area of south China famous. I was now in the world of classical Chinese landscape paintings. The strangely shaped limestone peaks did not rise gently, there were no foothills or slopes leading up to them. They leaped long and thin straight out of the flat earth and sat alone, pointing to the clear blue sky. The unique formation of these moody mountains goes back several hundreds of million years to when this area was under the sea and an upheaval raised its status to that of dry land. Later it was flooded, then lifted again in more cataclysmic events. The alternating sea water and air created karst limestone formations that, vulnerable to erosion, evolved into pinnacles and caverns. Local people call them fascinating names – ‘elephant trunk’ and ‘moon hill’. Thanks to the mountains’ caves, Guilin and the surrounding district became the headquarters of those Chinese who resisted the Japanese during the second world war.
Our boat plodded on. We seemed to be the only one going in this direction, but after three hours we began passing boats that came from the opposite direction of Guilin. The trip up-river against the flow was slower than coming downstream, which was why the jet setters stayed in Guilin and did the trip vice versa.
The tourist boats were floating palaces compared to ours. They were loaded with fat cats dripping cameras, some of whom began photographing us. I thought this was weird, but then some tourists feel obliged to photograph everything in sight, even other tourists. Perhaps we looked colourful to them. The fat cats had, however, been fed. The hostel cook had offered me a sandwich to take with me. It had cost twice the regular price because it contained cheese. Kraft Cheddar, in fact. I was shown the label and told proudly, ‘From Australia’. The slices of cheese tasted quite elderly and had been shaved off with a razor and put between thick old bread with no butter. Thank heavens I had not allowed the cook to toast it, as he had been determined to do, or it would have been a piece of rock.
Another hour later we turned around to come back. This was our first mistake. Our driver saw a mate on the shore who offered him some grapefruit. He took the boat in close to the shore to collect them and on the way back out we ran aground on some rocks. When I saw our captain start to take off his shoes I thought he was abandoning ship. No going down bravely with the vessel for him! But then he made us also take off our shoes and jump into a couple of feet of water to help him push the boat off. At last we freed the boat, but then it wouldn’t steer straight. The rudder was bent. Back into the water we went again to push the
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