Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine September 2016 | Page 88

86 Travel | Guilin © Tjetjep Rustandi The Guilin landscape is like being in a dream in which you’ve arrived in a mythical land from an ancient Chinese tale. It’s lush and beautiful yet peculiar, as landscapes often are in dreams. Trees have long, spindly trunks and sudden toppings of leaves, and rivers curl back on themselves in lazy loops. The mountains are absurd outcrops of rock like camels’ humps, looming from shimmering green rice fields like a science-fiction fantasy; indeed, some scenes in Star Wars were actually filmed here. No surprise that this magical landscape which surrounds the city of Guilin is one of the country’s most famous tourist destinations. This is where Chinese newlyweds hope to come on their honeymoon. Its romance has seduced poets and painters for thousands of years. You see such landscapes in scroll paintings, the mountains squashed up and wreathed in mist, while down below in the valleys are tiny human figures and dragon-roofed pagodas. It’s from such depictions that outsiders have formed their stereotype of the oriental countryside. Guilin city is the centre for air and river transport and the access point for the region’s scenic wonders. Although it’s a city of more concrete than grace, albeit dotted with lakes, it nevertheless merits a day or two. Walk up Whirlpool Hill – there’s a small teahouse where you can recuperate your energy – and you’re rewarded with a fine view over the town, the Li River and the humped hills that line the horizon like an improbable pantomime backdrop. Whirlpool Hill is riddled with caves, one purportedly the home of an ancient dragon. One cave houses Buddhist stone-carved statues that date from the Tang and Song dynasties. Other Guilin viewing points offer different angles on the same splendid countryside. (“The views will make you feel intoxicant,” enthuses a local tour brochure.) They all have imaginative names, such as the pagoda-topped Elephant- Landscape of the Li River near Yangshuo. A traditional bamboo raft on the Li River at Yangshuo.