Guilin to Yanshuo - The Li River

---

After a brief overnight stay in Guilin overlooking the River we had a fantastic western breakfast – Greg had tomato sauce for the first time – he was happy. We took a bus out of town to the ferry terminal to join our cruise boat. The cruise down the Li River was one of the most relaxing days we have spent. We were given a packed lunch (because the food served on the boat would upset our stomachs too much) and all we had to do was enjoy the scenery, and what spectacular scenery it was. Sheer mountain peaks and lots of them – the River was very shallow, you could see the rocks on the bottom for most of the trip and in one place we actually scraped across a particularly shallow section. I won't try and describe the mountains, I will just post some pictures so that you can see for yourself. We spent most of our time out on the middle deck just enjoying the sun (24 degrees today) and the scenery.

We were part of a flotilla of boats cruising down the River and on the way there were a number of villages where tourists could go to hire smaller boats and cruise up and down. Because it was Sunday a lot of local tourists were out on the water and it was quite busy in places.

When we arrived in Leshan we had a 20 minute walk from the boat through the local markets to our hotel (our overnight bags went straight to the hotel by bus) to check in. Then it was 2 hours of free time so we checked out the local streets and the market. Greg got some clothes and a new overnight bag and we got a present for Matt. We had a lovely dinner in the hotel and then we went to the Li River Impressions show which was absolutely amazing. The director is the same guy who directed the Beijing olympics. The arena was an amphitheatre on the river bank and the back drop was the river and the mountains themselves. The show was all in a local dialect of Chinese and there were no translations but that didn't matter – the show demonstrated the local villagers life and customs and was an experience that you can't miss if you come to this part of China.

---

Photos

The Li River
Just spectacular

Relaxing on Deck
The Li River Cruise

Comments

[Max]

Looks wonderful
Great to hear your stories - and it looks and sounds amazing. It certainly is an amazing country. Will you be buying more shares that are linked to the China growth now? :)