Garuda Indonesia Colours Magazine September 2016 | Page 88
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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.