Lijiang Cruise

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Day 3

Initially, I was supposed to go north to Longsheng (龙胜) to see the Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces (Longji Titian 龙脊梯田) today. That plan went down the drain. Upon speaking to my dorm fellow, the German Marco Polo, I realised that getting there and back takes a lot longer than the Lonely Planet guide suggested, so I decided to leave it for another time. Besides, there'll be plenty of rice terraces to see in Vietnam!

Instead, my companion from the previous day, along with Marco Polo and I, decided on taking a bamboo cruise down the Li River (Li Jiang 漓江) while on our way to Guagxi's most famous tourist attraction - Yangshuo (阳朔).

The ride over, to the spot where the bamboo rafts were to pick us up, was quite funny. The tour guide handed us some panda stickers, immediately dubbing us his 'Team Panda'. YangYang, as our guide was called, had a lot of interesting facts to share about Guilin and Yangshuo, but with time his sharing became rather tiring and his voice annoying. The only piece of information he shared, that I managed to remember, was that Guilin's name comes from the many osmanthus trees that grow in the region (osmanthus tree: gui 桂, forest: lin 林 - Guilin 桂林). I was glad when YangYang (which, if mispronounced, means SheepSheep!) finally switched to talk to the Chinese tourists on the bus. On a curious note, I'm pretty sure he told the Chinese tourists, that they could enjoy some tasty dog meat (gou rou 狗肉) in Guangxi Province! Obviously, they didn't come for the sights.

Finally, after being on the bus for over an hour, accompanied by lots of ooh's and aah's at the increasingly beautiful karst peaks on each side of the road, we were able to hop onto our 'bamboo' rafts. Unfortunately, here the rafts weren't made of real bamboo but long, white, hollow tubes that resembled bamboo only by shape! Dismissing the raft's fake appearance, we settled into our little benches, put on sexy orange vests and got our cameras ready!

The weather for rafting was perfect! The sun was hidden behind some clouds most of the time, so it wasn't too hot and the chances of turning into 'piglet' were therefore smaller. Enough about the weather - the whole area along the river was astonishing! The karst peeks, the little waterfalls... I could bamboo raft everyday just to enjoy the scenery over and over again.



* to be continued*

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