Guilin Day 39 27/10/2014

We had originally planned to go by train to Guilin but after further investigation realised that the journey would take 23 hours and decided to opt to fly.  The flight time was only 1 hour with the train taking a some what less direct route!  We set off for the airport via taxi early in the morning.  We tried and failed to hail a taxi outside the hostel (it's a really busy road full of lorries offloading and loading freight for the river) so we walked up to outside the Guild Hall where we were successful.  The taxi was small and it was a struggle to fit our luggage and us in.  We checked in and headed through security.  Simon got through but Diane was stopped and had to go off to open her hold luggage (which was actually Simon's).  Simon had already had a solar charger from hand luggage confiscated at Beijing airport so we put the remaining charger in the hold luggage.  Chongqing security didn't like this and we had to take it out and put in hand luggage.  We both agreed that it probably wasn't best to get split up either side of security in future.  The flight was delayed, no idea why, but other than that uneventful.  We'd arranged for a pick up from the hostel we were staying in, Riverside Hostel.  Just under 1m people live in Guilin.  It's next to the River Li with a backdrop of karst peaks.  After checking in we had a walk along the riverside passing Elephant Trunk Hill and then round Shan lake.  In the evening we went to a nearby restaurant recommended by the hostel.  It was very busy although again we were the only westerners there.  We planned to go the Dazhi tomorrow to visit the Dragon's Backbone rice terraces which rise up 1000m and are apparently an amazing feat of farm engineering on hills dotted with minority villages.