Who knows what time our bikes arrived at the train station the night before? In any case we were not there to greet them. Andy was snoring long before their scheduled arrival time and I was out for an evening walk when their train pulled into the station. They did arrive safely and were waiting eagerly for us when we arrived to retrieve them the following morning. All of Siegfried and Roy's fingers and toes accounted for, we set off for a day's ride around Guilin. On our pedal to Flute Cave we were accompanied by all forms of transportation \--the most annoying of which were the tourist busses and trucks.
Passing us with great authority in both directions they leaned on their horns and approached us menacingly, making it hard to concentrate on the spectacular scenery. Great greenery-covered limestone peaks rise everywhere, leaving the horizon looking like the teeth of a moss-mouthed dog. A tree canopy covered the narrow road blocking the sun and cooling us. Sun or no sun, this was one of the milder days I'd felt in Southeast Asia. Perhaps the temperature was lower \--or was it the humidity? I had no complaints whatever the cause. I'd read that the cave itself was a tourist nightmare and was reticent to go to it much less into it.
When we made the last turn towards the entrance all my fears were realized. There were so many busses and taxis that they had to park them up to a kilometer away. Vendors noisily hawked everything from water to whistles hawked. We stopped for (what else but?) some ice cream and water. I snapped a photo of an Asian girl posing for a photographer on a live camel and one of the tenders of the beast was noticeably upset. She immediately ran up to me and shouted \"HELLO MONEY!!!\" I assumed it was a greeting and retorted \"hello honey.\" We couldn't get out of there fast enough.
We continued past the cave only to find that the road dead-ended just after a few hundred meters. Doubling back past the busses and vendors again (they were shouting \"hello money\" as we passed) we headed in the opposite direction away from the cave. There was no traffic save a few tractors and horse carts \--just a great road through the karsty formations and rice paddies. Only one car passed us just after we crossed a bridge that hailed from another era. The blue and white Chinese jeep with blue lettering warning people that it belonged to a driving school. Andy and I grimaced; just what the region needs, another driver -- not!
The jeep swerved and shuddered as it passed, the instructor propping the passenger door open with his foot while he shouted at his female student. Why was the door open anyway? So the instructor could bail out at the first sign of impending danger. Andy conjectured it was to keep the pedestrians and cyclists out of harm's way. Somehow the road circled us back to, where else?, the cave. There we saw our old friend Mrs. Hello Money. We gave up and headed back to town, only by a different route. This one was tree-lined as well but was decidedly lower on the socioeconomic scale.
Dump trucks thundered through this suburb full of limestone throwing a coating of gray dust over the houses and people we passed. Entering more inviting suburbs we found a market street and pushed our bikes through, ogling the fake Nike, Pierre Cardin, Versace and D&G goods in search of the Li River. Just before reaching its banks we came upon curtains of drying noodles on racks in the sun. The savory smell of drying wheat made us hungry and we decided to indulge ourselves with a bowl of noodles at a stand just in front of the swaying pasta fringe. As we rolled back into the city the sky darkened and a light rain began to fall just as we passed in front of our hotel.
We took that as a cue to have a nap before our afternoon walk. That excursion took us along the Li, which had transformed into a huge beach where Chinese tourists cooled themselves after their frenetic day of tourism. The favored swimming attire, at least for the males (which outnumbered females 10:1), was underwear. Most of the underwear was entirely inappropriate for this purpose and exposed the butts of the swimmers just as soon as it got wet. Unhindered by their immodesty the crowd seemed to be having a great time wading out into the water and letting the swift Li sweep them down river.
From here we hiked up to a peak some hundred meters above the center of the town while the sun slouched towards the horizon. At the top we enjoyed sweeping views of the town while our fellow climber Francesco Cieli lectured us about the role of the Jesuits in Chinese history. This now retired engineer was traveling on his own in Guilin. His daughters, old enough to be on their own, and his wife too frail to travel in Asia gave him his freedom to see China. He complained that he'd studied the wrong languages -- Aramaic and Latin were not as practical as Chinese.
After our hike together we sent him off in a cab to meet his friends, promising to look him up if we ever make it to Brussels again. We wandered in search of a meal and found just the spot. An arch-kitsch Chinese tourist restaurant was our pick. Hewn from stumps and varnished, the tables gave a rustic feel to the eatery. Some tables even sported tree seats that hung from the ceiling like a porch swing might from the eaves of a house. On the way in you could, if you wanted, choose any number of live animals in cages to be killed and cooked for you \--mmmm, fresh meat!
Birds, snakes, various mammals and some things we couldn't identify were all available to be sauteed, stir-fried, boiled or baked. Speaking of baked, I was. All the hectic tourism had worn me out. I retired early in preparation for our first day on the bikes in over a week...