October 30: Leed Flute Caves

Today was a relaxed day as I had no concrete plans. I decided to head to Leed Flute Caves 芦笛岩 as my friends from Yangshuo had gone there and gave it good reviews. The ride there via public bus took 40 minutes and only cost 1rmb. At the entrance, I bought the ticket which costed 110rmb and was asked to buy the Monorail ticket in order to reach the caves. The Monorail ticket costed 35rmb. Upon reaching the cave entrance, I realised I could have saved the 35rmb and walked to the entrance since it was very nearby, a ten minute walk only.

The limestone caves was lit in typical mainland Chinese technicolor fashion. I slipped away from the guided group at the first possible moment as I wanted to take my photographs leisurely and without people in them. After two hours, I was out of the cave, with quite a fair bit of photographs.

Walking back to the busstop, through Leed Flute Town 芦笛村, I came across a couple of street stalls that sold various rocks and minerals. One of them caught my eye, something the locals termed as rainbow rock 七彩石. A quick search on Google confirmed the name to be Carborundum and it was sold only for usd 10-40 per piece with a palm sized one for about 10usd. A quick haggle and negotiation later, I was the owner of three hand-sized pieces for just 100rmb (15usd) in total.

After the bus back to town, I took a quick nap in the hostel before heading to Diecai Hill 叠彩山. However at the ticketing counter, I found out that going to the peak would take 40 minutes and cost 35rmb. It was cloudy and the sunset didn't seem promising so I gave that a miss. Instead, I took a nice leisurely walk along the Li River and came to Sun Moon Lake 日月湖. Continuing on, I headed into the pedestrian street and roamed the area for another two hours. It was good opportunity for taking in the sights and sounds of the young Guilin crowd.

Back in my hostel after dinner, I met up with a friend that I had earlier roomed in while in both Guilin and Yangshuo earlier. He shared with me of his travels in the past three months, as he had been to almost every part of China, including the Basecamp of Mount Everest, the white palaces of Lhasa, the sunny beaches of Hainan and the snow scenes of Snow Town 雪乡. It was really brave of how he chose to quit his job and embark on this four month trip across all of China.