China Entry the Sixteenth: Snake Wine and Toothpicks

We are on the road at 8:00am on the way to our boat ride down the Li River. Obviously, by 8:00am, I really mean 8:15am after our usual series of debacles about jackets and bathrooms and "I'll run and get that before we go." I smile fondly and miss these moments when I'm gone from them.

We're headed to a boat tour down the Li River, which is also the best way to view the strikingly beautiful scenery of the famous hills of Guilin. There are two key things to take away from this boat trip: Firstly it rained the whole time, and secondly Felix and the snake wine.

1. The Rain in Guilin Happens, Well, All Day Long
So, the point of this boat tour is to stand on the open-air deck and take in the fabulous scenery. At the first opportunity, we rush to the deck to do just that. Hey! Here's a shocker! Rain and wet! Rain and wet!

I spend the first fifteen minutes of the tour being cranky about the rain and ducking inside every three minutes. Also, of course, being cranky that we're not seeing the scenery in all of its glory.

But then something happens. The rain stops feeling cold and uncomfortable to me and starts feeling refreshing and clean. And Ho and Lisa and Felix are making me laugh at every little thing. I start to realize that tons of people have seen this scenery during the high season, but how many have seen it look so true to classic Chinese paintings and depictions, with the thick heavy mist around it? I start to be really aware of how beautiful it is and how happy I am to be there in that moment. And I'm glad I didn't waste too much time being annoyed at the rain.







2. Felix and the Snake Wine
Felix is this adorable and charming German whom we've been hanging out with. It soon becomes apparent that Felix and I are the "drinkers" on the boat. When I order my first glass of flower wine, Felix says, "So you like to drink in the morning, do you?" And it's only in that moment that I realize that I've started drinking at 10:00am. I feel like I'm in Pennsylvania hanging out with my family all of a sudden.

Felix and I have a couple of glasses of flower wine. It's a nice way to spend the morning.



And then they bring around the snake wine.

Snake wine is exactly what it sounds like, by which I mean grain alcohol with dead snakes fermenting in it. No kidding. Take a look.



I say to Felix, "Maybe we should just get one and split it. It might be really disgusting."

Felix thinks this through, takes a moment to look at me with that "Nope! I'm an adventurer!" look and says, "Let's get two." And so we get two.

And we are, of course, immediately disgusted by what we are drinking after the first sip. Ho takes this brilliant photo of us as we're taking our first sips. I think the photo accurately captures the fact that, when you drink this, YOU CAN ACTUALLY TASTE THE DEAD SNAKE. It's so foul that I can barely describe it, though I do think that the photo does all the speaking for me.



Ten minutes later, our glasses are still full.

I look at Felix and say, "Maybe we should just shoot it."

Up go the glasses.

We down the snake wine.

And I taste fermenting snake in my mouth for the next two days.

Isn't Felix adorable? That's all I'm saying.

Also On the Boat Trip...
- Throughout the entire boat ride, I was fascinated by watching the locals ride bamboo rafts up to the side of the boat and then jump onto the boat runner to try to sell cheap, knock-off jade Buddha statues through the boat windows. It was actually very creepy. This nation is poor.




- There's a cranky Australian couple who actually stays INSIDE for the entire boat trip and then nixes the idea of spending extra time in the town where the boat docks before we head back to Guilin. They are proof that no matter where you are, unhappy is unhappy.

- There are french fries for lunch. That's what I eat on the Li River in China. French Fries.

- There is this brilliant moment where we're out on deck and I say to Felix, "Ho's camera is way nicer than mine is," and Ho turns around and the look on his face is so smug and happy. Beaming, even. It's adorable. I'll remember that look always.

- Heike was invoked! I believe Heike will be invoked on every future trip we ever take.



Once we dock in town, I try to fenangle extra hang-out time, but there is scenery to see! It's actually impressive how we squeeze in maximum viewage in just an hour and a half. Even more impressive when you know that we burn the first fifteen minutes that we're there booking our plane tickets from Guilin back to Hong Kong. It wasn't so much an option because those tickets really needed to be booked, but it means our speed sightseeing is even more condensed.

Then, we track down a taxi driver and get him to give us a speed tour. We book it out to Moon Hill, where we literally get out of the cab, take about five pictures each and then get back in the cab and rush to some other natural beautiful spot that I think is called something like Big Tree or something like that. There, we get out of the cab, walk around for a closely timed ten minutes, take some pictures and then book it back to the cab to get back to our transport to Guilin.











We arrive back to the rendevous point to head back to Guilin exactly on time. It's not pretty, planned or relaxing, but it is awesome and fun. I'll take it!

That night in Guilin, we have catfish with its head on the plate and chicken with its head AND feet on the plate. Nobody's feeling all that well after dinner, so we decide to stay in that night and play cards.

We've been teaching Lisa how to play Texas Hold'em all trip long. Whenever there is down time, we've had cards out (more or less). This night, because we are in for the evening, we have time for a full-on tournament using toothpicks as betting chips. Ho goes out early when Lisa's busts his low number kicker with a only slightly higher number kicker.

I hold on for a long time. I have her down to her last toothpick at one point when I'm running a Royal, but I start to feel bad and advise her not to go all in. After that, she suddenly starts playing brilliantly and takes every single toothpick away from me. She eventually wins the entire game by once again beating our matching pairs with a low number kicker. Sigh. But she ends the game with the funniest comment: "In real life, I loose huge amounts of cash. In fake life, I win toothpicks."

We turn on the TV before bed and the final "Lord of the Rings" movie is on in English. We fall asleep to it, and I'm already sad as we fall asleep because tomorrow is the last day of the trip.