Also, Guilin is a very cool trip. Everyone takes the four hour boat ride down to Yangsou and then a bus back to Guilin. You want to get a local to go with you and book the trip on a Chinese boat that's not for foreigners. Way more authentic that way.
Last time I was in Guilin, the in-laws dug up a tour in the nearby countryside that was a village that had just been discovered when the gov't. put a road nearby in 2001. They had allegedly never been touched by modernity and the endless terraced hillsides looked way to real to have been put there with machines just to build a tourist attraction.
The women don't cut or wash their hair until they marry. Seemed a little hokey and fake, but some of it seemed pretty real and it was very different.
