Fubo Hill, Reed Flute Cave & Elephant Trunk Hill

The first order of the day was breakfast and so we set out to wander the streets in search of a very cheap Chinese breakfast of steamed buns and rice porridge. We turned left and walked around the block finding nothing and as we got closer to the hostel having come full circle we found what we were looking for but our Chinese failed us or perhaps it was a misunderstanding between dialects. Instead of pumpkin buns we got spicy pork but the red bean buns were good. Then it was on to Fubo Hill just around the corner from the hostel which we chose over the Solitary Beauty Peak because entrance was half the price (40 Yuan), it is next to the Li River and from a distance they look to be the same height.

Panorama of Guilin looking West from the top of Fubo Hill

Panorama looking South over Guilin and along the Li River from the top of Fubo Hill

Margaurita and I on the top of Fubo Hill, Guilin

The temperature was already up in the thirties and it wasn’t even 10 o’clock so we took an air-conditioned taxi and headed for the Reed Flute Cave which is a little way out of the town. Once again there was lots of tawdry lighting but the cave itself was quite impressive with some large caverns, formations and even a laser light show casting shapes on the ceiling of the largest hall. We tagged onto the back of another tour group who had an English-speaking guide to pick up on a few things although there was nothing about how old it was or how it formed but rather what imaginary thing the formations resembled. They even pointed out a mound of limestone that they had labelled Father Christmas.

Some of the impressive formations in the Reed Flute Cave, Guilin

One of the large caverns with coloured lighting

The lighting actually made this cityscape formation and reflection look pretty cool

So much for beating the midday heat as we were finished at the Reed Flute cave before 12 o’clock. The heat was pretty stifling so we took the opportunity to head back to the hostel and ask for help booking our train tickets home, still not sure how many days in advance we could buy them. They said they could help us but with a 30 Yuan service fee (for the middle man to take a taxi to the train station and stand in line) which we thought was a bit steep. We decided we would try on our own as well as trying to find a travel agency to book a bamboo raft to Yangshuo. After walking around for half an hour we still hadn’t found a travel service when I looked at a pamphlet we had and recognized the building and where it was. They couldn’t help with the bamboo raft but they had a train ticket office however they said the soft sleeper tickets were all sold out until the 15th and we needed to leave on the 11th. They then suggested we try the train station offering no explanation as to why, if they had no tickets, the train station might. Slightly panicked we caught a taxi straight to the train station were the queues were all 20 people long and the board with the train schedules above the tellers showed no tickets for any of the trains on the dates we needed. After standing in queue for a while it became apparent this was going to be a lost cause and so we went outside. Not knowing what to do we tried an official looking China International Travel Service (CITS) office in the station parking lot. The guy behind the desk spoke very good English and said the trains were indeed all sold out but why don’t we take a soft sleeper bus. He told us it was faster (15 hours), slightly cheaper(10%) and there were 2 buses everyday. Sold we handed over 840 Yuan for two tickets and got a hand written receipt with his cellphone number on it and he told us to come back at 3:00pm the following Monday (30 minutes before the bus departs) to collect our tickets. My suspicion was first aroused when I handed over the cash and he gave me change from his wallet and the lack of actual tickets concerned me somewhat but what else could we do. We thought about a flight but that would be twice as much. Having helped us with tickets home we asked about the bamboo raft but his prices were no better than the hostels and with my doubts on the authenticity we decided to just book the raft through the hostel.

In all the panic and stress we hadn’t had a chance to get lunch so we had a late snack at 4 and deemed it too late to get to Tunnel Hill Park so settled for the Elephant Trunk Hill, a must see according to guide books, and it was actually pretty good. We were lucky enough to catch the afternoon show of a cultural performance and the soft late afternoon light which made for some good photos.

playing a Reed Flute

standing on knives

Elephant Trunk Hill with Tunnel Hill Park and pagoda in the distance

posing with some Cormorants that locals still use to fish in the river

Looking down the Li River from the top of Elephant Trunk Hill

Karst peaks surrounding Guilin, silhouetted in the afternoon sun

Margaurita and I in front of Elephant Trunk Hill

It was a nice way to end off what had been a stressful afternoon and once back at the hostel we booked our bamboo raft cruise to Yangshuo for the next morning with pick-up at a decent 10:00am.

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Everything is better in panorama!

I’ve finally had a chance to sit down and click-through the 3000 odd photos I took while on our 3 week holiday in Africa. As well as choosing the good ones and deleting the many bad ones I have also taken the time to digital stitch several photos, that I took intentionally, to produce panorama images of some of the landscapes from Victoria Falls and Cape Town with some fantastic results if I say so myself.

NB Click on the images to see them larger

Panorama of the Devil's Cataract at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

I have been researching what lens to buy next for my new Canon 550D SLR camera. Of course it would be great to have a wide-angle lens for photographs like these but with amateur results like this from digitally joining photographs together perhaps I can put that off for a while. If you like the photo above check out the rest here.

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Rounding out the holiday

With only a few days left we had done most of the must see items on our list so it was time to just kick back and relax. That being said I had some doctor’s appointments, just checkups, not being daring enough to trust the Chinese medicine practitioners or their propensity to prescribe dried plant roots over FDA approved antibiotics. I got the all clear from the dentist but the dermatologist was a different story and I was scheduled for minor surgery the following day. I won’t bore you with the details but all went well.

my mom and Di catching up on the deck

By chance our trip happened to coincide with one of my mother’s best friends 60th birthday celebration. Her family and ours have been friends as long as I can remember as well as having gone on several holidays together over the decades so it was great to be there for that and catch up with some old (no pun intended) friends. The weather was just perfect for our last couple of days as you can see from the photo above. As is customary with the bigger birthdays, Di made a speech which was very funny as she ran through how each of the people there that night fitted into her life with the backup of a slideshow with a few surprises but it was after dinner that the party really started…

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R62 to Klein Brak and the Cango Caves

It was early as we started on the N1 highway out of Cape Town. Just the other side of the Huguenot Tunnel, which is nearly 4 kms long, we emerged to sunrise and a rather hazy morning however the Du Toitskloof mountains could still be seen towering above us on both sides.

On the N1 highway towards Worcester

Next up was breakfast on the side of the road near Barrydale with the backdrop of the famous Cape Fold Mountains (see photo below) that separate the temperate coastal region of the Garden Route from the

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Day 2 – Getting wet at The Victoria Falls & walking with lions

In the distance you could hear a low rumble. We sat outside on the verandah at Ilala Lodge as we ate our include breakfast buffet of fresh fruit, yoghurt and cereals as well as an a la carte menu looking across to the mist rising up from the Falls less than a kilometre away.

Welcome to the Victoria Falls, "The smoke that thunders"

According to the Victoria Falls guide, “They are not the widest waterfall or the highest waterfall but with all dimensions taken into account, including almost the largest flow rate, they are considered to be the biggest curtain of falling water in the world,”  and we were just about to see them but first

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Day 1 – Getting to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

I say getting to because our route wasn’t very direct; and that was before the travel issues started. We arrived at Cape Town airport at the domestic terminal and searched the departures board to determine which counter 1time was operating at for us to check our luggage in. After locating our flight on the board I scanned across to reveal that the flight status was “delayed to 12:00”. A five-hour delay that meant that we would only be taking off 30 minutes after the scheduled takeoff of our connecting flight in Johannesburg. Could this really be happening?

We made our way to the counter with desperate looks on our faces and told the check-in staff that we had a connecting flight in Johannesburg at 11:30am. She said they were trying to accommodate those passengers on other airliners and that we must follow her to the Kulula counter where we would be on standby.

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