Guilin: An ideal spot for the silverscreen

It was the movie “Chandni Chowk to China” that inspired me to make the trip from Kolkata to China. As a travel fan I always look for the place less travelled so I chose the city called Guilin, a 2 hour flight from Kunming, my entry point to China. In hindsight, I am pretty thankful to my agent for actually suggesting this quiet and dreamlike city, whose name means Osmanthus Forest.

A huge lush green carpet welcomed me as I landed. The lingua franca, naturally, is Chinese so I needed an English speaking guide to help me throughout my stay. The guide, whom I met at the airport, had an ‘English’ name, probably because it is easier for us to pronounce and much more easy to remember too. Trust China to ensure that its citizens who interact with outsiders adopt Western names so that they could communicate more smoothly with the rest of the world.

On the way, the guide updated me with the valuable information like the fact that Guilin is a small city but its government governs 5 districts and 12 counties. The total population is approximately 5million including Han and various ethnic minorities like Zhuang, Hui, Dong, Miao, Mulao and Yao.

Famous for its unique scenery and renowned as South China’s shining pearl, the present-day Guilin was originally under sea. But thanks to tectonic movement of the Earth’s plates, the area rose and formed the mesmerising landscape that now mesmerises everyone.

It is regarded as a natural theme park with verdant hills, crystal clear rivers, magnificent karsts, wonderful caves and beautiful lakes. The city is full of hills but no mountains, and the water of the lakes actually acted
like a moat for the city.

After a sumptuous lunch of chicken sweet corn soup, rice, pork with mushroom , fried prawn and, of course, green tea, we hit the road to Elephant Trunk Hill Park. Situated majestically at the confluence of Li River and Peach Blossom River, the hill is pretty aptly named for it indeed resembles an elephant drinking water from the river with its trunk.

The cave between the elephant’s trunk and the body is known as Water Moon Cave. Inside it, a number of stone inscriptions have been found that date back to the Tang Dynasty. On top of the hill stands a pagoda named Puxian Pagoda dating back to the Ming Dynasty.

OF CAVES AND LAKES

Throughout the park and on the river bank, cute baby elephant statues are placed to beautify the place and to attract children. Who can resist that? Our next stop is at the eponymous Fubo Hill where a temple was built during the Tang Dynasty to commemorate General Fubo. This partially submerged hill contains the Pearl Returning Cave, Thousand Buddha Cave and the Sword Testing Rock.

The legend for the Pearl Returning Cave is that a peasant picked a pearl from the cave, which angered the Dragon King. The peasant subsequently returned the pearl; the king was pacified and stopped raising waves. Thousand Buddha Cave is obviously full of statues of Buddha and murals dating back to Tang Dynasty.

Sword Testing Rock is a huge limestone hanging from the ceiling and there is a gap of 1.3inches between the tip of the stone and the surface. Legend says that General Fubo tested his sword on the rock leading to the present shape. For the more practically minded, let me add that the scientific explanation os that as the river water flows along it, corrosion formed the shape!

Guilin is a karst wonderland with a number of caves. One of those is Reed Flute Cave which gets the name from the reeds growing outside the cave used for flutes. It was discovered in 1940 and known as the “Palace of Natural Arts” for its variety of stalactites, stalagmites, columns and other stone formations.

Nightlife consists of a boat trip around city’s two rivers – Li and Taohua (Peach Blossom) and four lakes Rong (Banyan tree) Lake, Shan (Chinese fir) Lake, Gui (Osmanthus tree) Lake, and the Mulong (Wooden dragon) Lake. All of these are must-see places.

The boat passed 19 bridges illuminated with colourful neon lights, enlivened by the musical performances by the locals. And we sailed past gardens, fountains, Tang Dynasty styled buildings.

DREAM SEQUENCE

Then came the 9-storied Sun Pagoda made of solid bronze and the 7-storied Moon Pagoda made of wood and glazed tiles. A demonstration of tradition al fishing with the help of cor morants showed how the bird dives, catches a fish and returns to the boat. The fisherman then removes the fish from its throat as the cormorant could not swal low it due to a cord round its neck to deter swallowing. Grisly, but ef fective, I guess. I was somewhat mollified at the sight of the fish erman later rewarding the bird with a small fish.

The next morning, even a driz zle couldn’t dampen our enthusi asm to have the Lijiang River Cruise from Guilin to Yangshou – a stretch of 83km. The river wound through the picture-post card like landscapes, spectacular villages, strangely shaped hills and gorgeous waterfalls.

Sunshine peeping out from behind rainclouds gradually spread over the surrounding vegetation, bringing to light the reflections of the hills in clear water. It was a mind blowing experience . Drifting slowly in line with a Chinese landscape painting, I found that ducks were paddling in a group, peasants reaping in the harvest, fishermen rowing narrow bamboo rafts and cormorants catching the fish for the master. Everything is a photographer’s dream so I can see them going berserk here capturing all of this wondrous beauty for posterity.

I was intrigued about why a peak/hill was named Snail Hill, Page Boy Hill, Five Fingers Hill, Green Lotus Peak, Yellow Cloth Shoal or Nine Horse Mural Hill. The 20RMB note with a picture of Lijiang River was be treasured as a memento. Han Yu, a great poet in Tang Dynasty, wrote a popular poem to praise the beautiful scenery of this river as “the river winds like a blue silk ribbon, while the hills erect like green jade hairpins” .

At the end of the 8-hour cruise we reached Yangshou and returned to Guilin by road. But my mind was full of the Li River, as is regarded as the soul of Guilin. Our day trip wouldn’t have been complete if we hadn’t seen “Dreamlike Lijiang” – a grand theatrical evening show by the minority communities of Guilin. It is a ballet cum acrobatic presentation depicting the beautiful creations of nature, the journey of life through mountains and waters and the progress of civilisation.

The show is a true depiction of the Chinese philosophy of “Harmony between Heaven and Human” . The people of Guilin say that “I would rather live in Guilin than in heaven” . After seeing the place for myself, I can understand why they say that!