Guilin - the gateway to Guanxi's scenery

What can I say, it's a town primarily focussed on being the gateway for Chinese tourists to Yangshou and the LongJi rice terraces.
What's more it was about 35 degrees and 80% humidity when we arrived (on a really rather good Dragon Air flight).
The heat and humidity meant it was a struggle to put one foot in front of the other, but we managed to visit one of the local parks centred on a limestone peak (for which the area is so famous).
The park was average and so was the view from the top of the sweaty climb, as the sprawling city covered most of the land with the odd peak poking through. That doesn't matter though as we're due out into the countryside for a lot if the rest if the week where we're sure the scenery will improve.
What made the park fun were the translations on the signs....here are a few of the highlights:

In the evening we found ourselves the only westerners in a huge fish restaurant where we were able to try the local speciality Li river beer fish. This came in a sizzling pot with lots of chili and garlic and as we had seen on the way in, was swimming mere minutes before, so was certainly fresh.

Day two here started with early morning Tai Chi next to the river which was interrupted by torrential rain and a mad sprint back to our hostel.
We then decided to do a cycle recommended in the lonely planet to a 1000 year old village where all residents share the same surname!
We hired some bikes and after being made to promise not to loose them(!), we picked up some supplies from the local bakery and set off:

Mothers, look away now. This was one of those days you really wish we had a go pro. The first 10km was through town on 'cycle lanes' partially walled off from the main road by bushes. How pleasant you think?

In these 1.75 metre wide lanes were bicycles, pedestrians, billions of mopeds, tuk tuk like mini vans, workers cutting down the bushes laying the debris into the lane, pot holes galore (big enough to swallow a wheel) and the occasional proper vehicle trying to find its way to the road, all of these we're going in both directions indescriminantly.
In addition the road system was like a grid, so every x metres, our lane needed to cross a major road running perpendicular, the method for which seemed to be 'hit it at full speed and swerve in and out of traffic crossing you'.
We've never needed high speed reactions quite like we needed them today.
In fact, once you get over the sheer terror of doing it, you get time to look around and see other more terrifying sights like mothers driving mopeds with one hand whilst holding small children on their lap with the other hand and small children running out into traffic with no one holding their hand.
After an hour and a small panic that the little blue dot on google maps had vanished (iPhone users, you'll know what we mean), thereby leaving us with no idea where on the map we were, we found the right turning and started off into the countryside.
I should point out it was and had been raining, so with no mudguards we were covered in mud splatters, but in good spirits.
After another hour or so on a relatively large road we found the turning off to a little bridge and a small country road:

The scenery was nice here and we wheeled through some little villages to shouts of 'hello, hello' from Chinese children. By this point we were out in the sticks and really covered in mud and were the local attraction on the road. Everyone that moped'ed past had a good stare and the best were the open backed buses where you got 10 stares at once. We decided the look on the locals faces were something akin to what you'd look like after seeing a polar bear in the Scottish highlands. Starts with 'what the ?!' disbelief, moves to 'actually I'd quite like a closer look, that's quite cool', and ends with all smiles.

At 2hrs and 45 minutes we found the village (which is more than some other folk on the internet had done when we researched it) where our bikes were locked up and the gatekeeper looked after them while we went in:

A local woman was staggered by the covering of mud Sam had and sent her to wash off in the river!

We walked and slipped (covered in moss and wet from the rain) our way round the alleys where we found hundreds of teeny tiny frogs hopping along:

Not much else to see though so after half an hour or so we had a picnic by the river and started the cycle back.

We stopped at the nearby village of Jiuwu and picked up some steamed buns from the steam bun lady on the street. We weren't sure what was in them and we'll never know! (Probably for the best).
As we knew the way back, it was much quicker (only 1hr 45) as we didn't need to keep stopping to check the map.
Hot showers were needed before we headed out to a tiny Indian restaurant in the food alley where they do a really quite yummy garlic naan.
So in conclusion, Guilin is was it is, a passing through place, but we're looking forward to getting more out in the sticks.