As I already noted in my post about our first day in Guilin, taxi drivers are quite commercial here. Every time we take a taxi the driver starts to talk with us, and every time he or she (many female drivers here) tries to sell us tickets or wants to drive us to another tourist location.
I am not exactly sure how it works, but in the meantime I have figured out that there is something behind all of this. This morning we drove to the Seven Stars Cave, close to downtown Guilin, when the driver asked us to go to a different window to get a piece of paper for him to show that he took us here. Upon doing that the ride was for free! Yesterday we had a similar experience with a taxi driver that also needed a paper (for points, she told us – we did not get a free ride though). It seems that the some organization awards drivers that bring tourists to certain locations, and awards them more than the cost of the ride. Nice for the drivers, but a a pain for tourists who now have to listen to sales pitches every time they take a taxi. But luckily not many tourists take taxi’s here, as most are either here on group tours (both the Chinese and the foreigners!), or are backpackers that normally don’t take taxis.