Day 11: Elephant Trunk Hill

We weren’t meeting the group until 11am. Ryan and I actually managed to get our butts out of bed before 9 because we wanted to go see the Elephant Trunk Hill. It’s one of the more famous landmarks in Guilin and because of that I was really surprised it wasn’t on the official itinerary. It was only a few blocks from our hotel and it was about 60yuan ($10) to get into the park. There were hills to climb and caves to explore and an old pagoda that had been shut down. The hills we climbed were steep and the steps slippery from the rain and I decided the reason it wasn’t on the official list was because many of the people travelling were retired older people who could fall and break a hip on the slippery rocks. It sounded like a valid theory until we climbed several other hills later in the tour that were just as steep and slippery, if not more so, so I don’t know what their excuse was. It was a lot of fun though, to explore around with just the two of us without having to wait for a guide or stay with other group members.

Elephant Trunk Hill in Guilin

We rejoined the group at 11am for our official tour, which just happened to be at another park with hills to climb! This park was admittedly bigger than the Elephant Trunk hill and had lots of different routes you could climb. The hills ranged from mild with only about 100 steps to painful with over 500 very steep steps. Ryan was enthusiastic to see everything he could. We climbed the smaller hill then raced back down to try and find a cave on the map. It was up another steep hill and the cave was only half way up.

 I needed time to rest but gave the camera to Ryan and let him trot off. I managed to get up there eventually just not as quickly or gracefully as he could. From the top of the mountain we could see the bulk of the rest of the group on top of another slightly lower peak a couple hundred meters away. We made our way back down to the starting point. With only about 15 minutes until the designated departure time Ryan decides he just has to climb that last hill. After the first hill in the morning and the last killer I was done. I told him not to kill himself and I wouldn’t let them leave without him. He managed to make it all the way up and back down with a few minutes to spare.

After lunch we headed to airport to fly the Kunming. We had been checked in beforehand so our seats weren’t together. As I got on the plane I looked back and noticed there was someone in my seat! The row was filled with three big old Chinese guys. If anyone had spoken English I could have just switched with whatever seat they were supposed to have, but being the mute tourist all I could do was show my ticket to the stewardess. She looked at the seat number and the guy sitting in my seat and some very harsh words were exchanged back and forth (but all Chinese words sound harsh) Eventually she got him to move and let me sit down even though by that time I really didn’t want to. Most uncomfortable flight ever.