Our trip was so great, we cut it short!

Forgive the sarcastic title to this post. We had a great time on our trip but we're back in HK now. The Guangxi whirlwind tour ended at 6 days instead of the intended 11 days. There were a few reasons for this but the main reason was that there wasn't that much to do in Guangxi that we didn't do already and all of us had a reason to come back. My reason was I wanted to enjoy a bit of HK over this holiday (hiking!) and I had a few errands to run back here so I didn't mind coming back early.

After Yangshuo, we traveled 1.5 hrs by bus to Guilin. What a huge disappointment that city was. The outskirts of the city had some karst peaks but nothing in the scale and numbers of Yangshuo. The city itself was just another bland Chinese city and we only stayed a day and a half which was about a day and a half too long. So why did Guilin suck? It was pretty polluted and very dusty, I don't recall urban pollution in China ever bugging me but it did in Guilin. Dirty Xi'an included.

After Guilin, we traveled 4 hours and 2 bus trips to the outskirts of a town called Longsheng where the famous Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces are located. We were really short for time and we stayed about 2 hours at the rice terraces because we had to return to Guilin the same day to catch a train back to Shenzhen and then back home to HK. The terraces were fantastic even though it was cold and rainy. I will definitely be heading back to that area in the future. If you're in southern China, definitely hit Yangshuo for 3-4 days and leave at least 2 days for the rice terraces. It shouldn't be missed. Use Guilin as a transfer stop only-there is no direct buses from Yangshuo to Longsheng, unfortunately. The food wasn't even a saving grace for Guilin, it wasn't good at all. The local delicacies are rice noodles 米粉 (so so) and Li River beer carp 漓江啤酒鱼 which I didn't bother trying because I hate carp.

Pictures to follow..