We were originally supposed to fly out to Chongqing in the late afternoon, but while on the boat the previous day (and five minutes after Madeleine had expressed a desire to get up late for a change), we received a call from the travel agency saying that our flight had been cancelled, they had rebooked us on a late evening flight, and so our morning program would be shifted to the afternoon. We asked Madeleine not to express any desires for exciting things like earthquakes or typhoons....
So after a lazy morning in the hotel Lily picked us up and over lunch discussed the plan for the day. Basically the problem was that the scheduled activities wouldn't fill the available time. So we added a cablecar trip up a nearby mountain (and turned down a several times reiterated offer to visit a government South Seas Pearl shop (we did the pearl thing in French Polynesia a few years ago...)), as well as a walk around downtown Guilin.
It was, with the exception of the caves, a forgettable day. The haze was back with a vengeance, so we couldn't see much from the top of Yang Mountain. The temple had fallen into ruin centuries earlier and so there was nothing else to see up there. Elephant Trunk hill was just a stone arch next to the Li River. The walk through downtown Guilin was unexciting. And the meals were so-so. On top of that I had the impression that Lily kept pushing souvenir purchase opportunities onto us... and she didn't do a particularly good job of informing and entertaining us either.
The caves were impressive in size and in the variety and complexity of the stalactite and stalagmite formations therein, but the technicolor lighting (very Chinese -- they love color) was a bit garish, and the local habit of spitting everywhere is even less attractive in the echoing location of a cave.
So, all in all we were pleased to have seen the landscape, but we weren't unhappy to leave Guilin... or Lily... behind us.
We arrived at Chongqing airport -- a massive place, as you'd expect for a city of 31 million -- around 11PM, picked up our luggage, met our driver (our guide sent a note apologizing for not being able to be present -- he had a fever, but promised to meet us the following morning (we weren't sure if that was a good thing, but what could we do?)), and were driven to our hotel. In the night Chongqing looked like something out of the movie Blade Runner -- built on a scale far too massive to be real. We checked into our hotel after midnight and were asleep 30 minutes later.
