Travel Diary | Company Trip: 6 Days 5 Nights in Guilin, China

Hi readers!

It has been a long time since I last shared personal stories or experiences on this blog. But writing and sharing something here now, so I can look back at it from time to time in the future. I would like to share with you guys the experiences I had during my recent company trip. First, we went to Singapore (2022), after that, we went to Danang, Vietnam (2023), and recently we went to Guilin, China (2024). Since I already wrote it as requested by my boss as a "diary" before and after the trip, it's easier to copy and paste it into this blog 😂. This is my 3rd company trip. The trip lasted 6 days and 5 nights, from 12/9/2024 to 17/9/2024. 

Day 1: KUL – KWL

  

I felt the most excited to start this trip. I slept quite late that night because I needed to settle urgent matters at work before 1 week's trip. It was my first trip to China, so I went through the list of things I needed to bring and my luggage was weighty after packing all my clothes and stuff. There were so many things I got together thinking "What if....", so I felt that I must be well prepared for everything. After arriving at Guilin International Airport, we went through customs and immigration and began our journey to China. 

  

After the long flight, I felt a bit tired, but I was energized once I arrived in Guilin, China. The view from the airport to the hotel is already magnificent. We checked in the hotel and went for dinner nearby. As you can see, the food was almost no protein and very vegetarian. I caught the view from my hotel room, which was splendid and not disappointing. I felt like all the fatigue I felt weeks before the trip was overshadowed by the excitement.

  

After arriving at the hotel, I took a stroll with my colleagues nearby because it felt like a waste of time to go to sleep right away. We walked near the hotel until 11 p.m. Because of the hot weather, I brought ice cream and mineral water. 

Day 2: Exploring Guilin – Longsheng
I had expected us to wake up early and watch the sunrise, but I guess we were too tired. We just watched the sunrise through the hotel gym and went for breakfast with others. I chose to eat bread, cereal, some salad and fruit. I wore a company T-shirt as agreed with others. We boarded our bus, travelling through the beautiful countryside. The road was bumpy, so I shared my motion sickness medicine with colleagues. We went to this cave where the closest we could get to the mountains of Guilin. I don't really remember the name because I went with mandarin Mandarin-speaking travel agent so I just followed them blindly since I could not understand what the agent said.😥 Hope next time my boss will choose English speaker travel agent so that I won't need to wait for my colleague to translate it for me.

 

The view outside and inside the cave is amazing. There are a lot of trees so I don't feel that hot and stuffy there.

Since we had a photographer throughout the trip, of course, we had to take at least one photo inside the cave.

 

I saw the right statue and immediately thought of Kim Shin from Kdrama Goblin where he had a sword stuck in his chest. Even my Instagram caption was written, "Kim Shin where u at?". It was an inside joke. if you know, you know. Hahaha! We reached Longsheng, famous for its Dragon’s Backbone Rice Terraces. 

The weather started to get really hot here at this Backbone Rice Terrace. But I still walked around quite a lot because of the view. The view was really "sejauh mata memandang" as people said.

After a scenic drive up winding mountain roads, the sight of terraced fields cascading down the mountains was breathtaking. 

 

After that, Lunch was a delicious local meal, featuring bamboo rice and fresh vegetables. The private room assigned for us was beautiful with the beautiful landscape of mountains and rivers. The temperature was sunny and the air was clean and refreshing. This view was near our restaurant.

The view of a refreshing-looking river can be seen from our restaurant. I was regretting so much for spending too much time eating and not having time to celup-celup kaki down there.

 

After that, we went to the lake park and took a stroll there before going to dinner nearby. For Muslims, we choose to pray at the restaurant. Because our food was mostly halal-friendly, they chose to separate us from different tables and even get a private room. So, it was easier to pray inside the room.

  

In the evening, we went to see the hotel waterfall show and it was amazing. I even thought that it must be easy to clean the building with all that water.

Day 3: Guilin – Yangshuo
After 2 days of staying in the same hotel, we were told to pack up and move to another hotel. On this day, we went to an ethnic village. 

 

This village shows how women are the leaders of the household and they work while men are household husbands. They show how the amount of silver they have is how they flaunt their wealth. 

After that, we went on a XingPing Li river cruise sailing through the river and even the camera was not able to fully capture the beauty of the area. My latest photo in the "About Me" section was taken here in XingPing Li River. It was really hot outside the cruise but I felt like wasted if I just sat inside the cruise with a view like that.

 

Told my friend that the view really looks like I was inside the Jurassic Park and sailing through the river just to see some dinosaurs peaking through the hills.

The view from the cruise. I was literally spending only about 10-15 minutes here. The rest of my time I just walked from the front to the back of the cruise to enjoy the view and took a lot of photos and videos.

 

In the evening, we explore West Street to see Guilin’s nightlife. We chose to walk around and then went back to the hotel and spent some time with my colleagues. I was so excited because I found Chagee here in China (big fan of Chagee) and hoped that this branch sell the tumbler but unfortunately, there was no tumbler sold here. But, isn't the street lowkey look like in Ipoh?

Day 4: Yangshuo – Lipu – Yangshuo
After a restful night in the hotel, we began our day with breakfast at the hotel and departed to Peak Ruyi Scenic Spot to ride a Cable Car. At first, I thought that we would reach the glass skywalk right after we rode the cable car. But turns out we need to hike to reach the end. But the view is sure, not disappointing. 

 

When we reached the glass skywalk, beneath our feet, we could see the sheer drop straight down to the valley below. Some of us were braver than others—those with a fear of heights took baby steps, clinging to the railings, while others posed confidently for photos right on the edge. It was a true test of courage, but everyone conquered their fear in their own way. 

The views of the surrounding mountains and valleys from the Skywalk were worth the adrenaline rush. After that, we went to Silver Cave and climbed almost 20-storey building stairs, but it was worth it because it was cold in the cave and the view was amazing. I even thought the stalactite from the cave looked like Dementor from Harry Potter Movies. 

 

I literally died inside the cave after my hike to Skywalk, and I was under the weather at that time. To be honest I felt like the agent pushing us to the max by putting all the places where we had to climb stairs in one day. After we reached the top, we went down by Zipline. It was fun and not scary at all. 

After that, we had lunch. All of us ate like we had been starving for days. Later that day, we went for a bamboo raft and lucky that there were some activities where we had to sing and try to control the raft, if not for sure I would pass out due to exhaustion.

 

After that, we went to this photo spot to take some photos before continuing to the next destination. It looks really unreal because it was so pretty.

If I am not mistaken, this place was a ancient town. At night, we have a bonfire party. At first, I thought the bonfire was like we were sitting together playing guitar and singing but it turns out we danced along with the song. It was fun and we held hands and dance by the bonfire. It was the most eventful day, tiring but I still had the most fun. I slept like a baby this night due to exhaustion.

Day 5: Yanghuo – Guilin
This day was pretty chill.  We went to ride a sidecar. I was the driver and Aiman was my passenger princess. We had a lot of pitstops and took photos because of the view. I found it was really fun to ride an electric motorcycle because it was smooth and less noisy. 

 

After that, we went for lunch and celebrated the mooncake festival and Ain’s belated birthday. I like the red bean mooncake, it was delicious. After that, we went to Mirage Guilin to watch some performances. 

 

It was amazing to watch ballet dancing, motorcycle performances, and many more. Later in the evening, we went to Wanda Plaza for some shopping and to try out their bamboo shoots noodle it was spicy I could not finish it all due to the spiciness level and the amount of noodles was too much for me. We checked the hotel after that and went for a stroll near the hotel to buy some souvenirs.

Day 6: KWL – KUL
I felt a bit sad that it was already at the end of the company trip. We went to Elephant Trunk Hill that morning took some photos, and went to eat an all-to-eat buffet. It was delicious and had a variety of seafood and fruits. After that, we went to the airport to check in and back to Malaysia.

  

My best purchase was this panda. I gave it to my friend's son as a souvenir. The panda is soft and fluffy and my friend's son called it Nana 👀

 

The buffet was non-halal. So, we literally just ate fruits, ice cream and some unmarinate seafood because the marinated one was being put side by side with non-halal meat. So, we just ate something safe. Hahaha. Lowkey hoping that on the next trip boss will tell the guide to bring us to the halal restaurant. Luckily we were kinda prepared for this trip so we brought some instant food and sambal terasi. At least we had some meat.

I hope you find joy in reading this also. More travel stories coming soon! Thank you for reading.

-Nana