Yangshuo

Caught a cruiseboat down the Li River as a way to get to the next place. Extraordinary landscape of Karst formations like a crowd of sentinels standing guard over forbidden territory. They were so densely covered in vegetation it looked like green fur. One poet describes this as a river ribbon winding through jade hairpins. Peak behind valley, peak after peak, all several hundred metres high. Steep, with occasional yellow-black cliffs at river’s edge. Narrow, round shapes, conical ones. Some looking like a group of head watching us from the distance where they became blue and indistinct. Rivermen on bamboo rafters driven by long paddles came alongside as we cruised by, catching themselves first on the bows, then hand-over-handing along the hull until they tied on to sell fruit or tourist junk.

Many Chinese men, these rivermen included, have a single very long finger- or thumbnail. Some have several. Someone explained to me these are used for scratching in fights. I wonder if there’s really that much fighting here, or if it’s more of a custom, a tradition, like facial hair on country men: mustache, beard. A symbol of masculinity or a visible defensive warming, but perhaps not a weapon that’s used much.

The rafts consist of five or six bamboo trunks lashed together with plastic rope. Barely wide enough for a pair of big feet as the trunks are not very thick: about the width of my fist. The rivermen stand on them with a surfer’s ease.

Checked into Monkey Jane’s Guest House and in the lobby met a Chinese girl nicknamed Kathy, who immediately suggested we go swimming. So, bathing trunks and inner tubes and down to the river we went. We swam a while, then drifted down on the tubes to a landing spot near the hotel. Here the current was fast and I had to paddle hard with both arms, Kathy hanging onto my foot, to steer us to shore. It was a fabulous couple of hours in magnificent scenery.

Wanted to see the countryside around Yangshuo, but the humidity deters me from anything but the most exemplary forms of lethargy. Postcards are almost all I can manage. But there’s a big show in town, called “Impressions Sanjie Liu”. It takes place on the Li River with a cast of 600, most of them local villagers and cormorant fishermen, and dramatizes the works of a famous poet who wrote about this region. There’s singing, dancing, a lot of floating and a spectacular light show.

The setting involves 15 Karst peaks as backdrop and they’re variously lit throughout the show. I couldn’t understand the story, if there was one, but that wasn’t necessary to enjoy the show. It was performance art put on by one of China’s most famous movie directors and made truly creative use of bamboo rafts, small barges, floating docks, colourful costumes (red, gold, green, blue) and plenty of lighting to tremendous effect, including battery-powered lights on costumes in a dark setting. Hard to describe this and get it across clearly. Here’s a link worth looking at to see more: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QHGHuidHfNQ&feature=related.

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