A tortoise in a cave

Saturday 9 June

We were going to hire bikes today, but it's been raining hard all night, and this morning it's still bucketing down. The weather is tropical, as the temperature is over 30 °c, and it's extremely humid. Some of the hostel guests are waiting for the coach to take them to the River Li, to do the “bamboo boat trip” we did yesterday; we wonder if today's trip will be cancelled.

We decide against hiring bikes; I tell Reg that even if the weather had been good, I'm worried about our safety on the Guilin roads, with motor cycles and cars coming at you from all directions. Instead, after our usual English breakfast we take a walk to the Seven Stars Scenic park, which gets its name from the position of its 7 hills, which suggest the shape of “The Plough” constellation.

On the way we decide to visit an art gallery which is managed by the owner of the Ming Palace Youth Hostel where we are staying. He is an artist himself, and the walls of the hostel are adorned with a variety of oil paintings, one or two by him, but many by other artists. We particularly like a co-ordinating pair of oil paintings on the wall of our room in the hostel, but don't know if they are for sale.

The hostel owner greets us warmly at the gallery. There are lots of paintings we really like; some of the artists have tried to capture the awesome riverscape of the greenery-clad limestone pinnacles stretching up above the River Li, which we were lucky enough to experience on our banana boat trip yesterday. One particular oil painting captures our eye and we tell the youth hostel owner that we'll consider this one – he has predictably offered us a much lower price than the one shown. The hostel owner tells us that the paintings in our hostel room are for sale, and we find that we can buy the pair for a very reasonable price. We tell him we'll think about it and will let him know later in the day.

As we walk along we are approached by a man who says he is an artist and a teacher, and would we like to visit his gallery, and have we tasted Chinese tea? Memories of our Tienanmen square scam experience loom; we hastily decline the man's offer and walk away.

The rain has stopped and we buy tickets for the Seven Stars Scenic park, and also tickets to enter the caves in the park, which supposedly go deep into the interior of the limestone peaks which form the skyline at the park. The temperature soars, and with the humidity the perspiration escapes from every pore, sticking my hair to my head. I can feel my energy rapidly dissipating, together with my enthusiasm for exploring the park.

We find the caves, and so does a large group of Chinese tourists, together with their guide with red flag on a pole. The air is wonderfully cool inside the caves, and in true Chinese style they have been “modernised', with coloured lights illuminating the rocks and passageways, and a pebbled concrete floor has been laid throughout. The guide gives an explanatory talk to the tourist group, but as we can't understand what she is saying we decide to venture forth and make our own way through the semi-darkness.

The caves don't hold much interest for me really, though I'm surprised to see a large (50 cm long) tortoise wandering about in one area of the caves – won't it get lost, and does it mind living in near darkness? The Chinese are generally not as sentimental as we British are about animals. I've heard about a wildlife park where tigers roam freely, and visitors can buy live chickens to throw out of their car windows, so that they can watch the tigers devouring their prey.

As we leave the caves we're met by a blast of heat, and decide to make our way back to the hostel via the town centre. I had previously seen a steak house and persuade Reg that it could be nice to have a Western evening meal. It's deliciously cool in the steakhouse, which surprisingly has a notice announcing “Merry Christmas” at the entrance, and a fully decorated Christmas tree in the porch, together with a Father Christmas statue. We order sirloin steak, but this turns out to be quite tough; the best thing about the meal is the French fries, which are good; the last time Reg tasted these was in Beijing.

On returning to the hostel, Reg asks the receptionist to phone the hostel owner, to let him know we'd like to buy the painting of bamboo boats on the River Li, that we saw in the gallery, together with the pair of Chinese-style paintings hanging on the wall in our hostel room. The hostel owner will unmount the paintings and ship them home to the UK for us.