Exploring China - Guilin and Yangshuo

Along the Li River

It took a great deal of effort to get us here (check out Hanoi blog to read the details) and stepping off the plane to this once closed-off country, we didn’t know what to expect. 


We arrived in Guilin, an absolutely lovely city with a modern, high rise area and an historical/cultural area set among four interconnected lakes and two rivers. Our hotel, once a tea museum, was set along one of the lakes and was absolutely stunning. The lakes are lined with lush, traditional landscaping, “floating” pagodas, bridges, public spaces for nightly dancing and Tai Chi, and pagodas for musical gatherings. At night, the entire lake area was illuminated to show-off the natural beauty. We took a tour of a local art gallery, participated in a tea tasting ceremony, and joined in a evening tour of the sights around the lake area.



Just some of the scenery day/night walking around the interconnected lakes - 

"floating" pagoda	a waterfall runs down the facade of this hotel at 9 pm daily - only one like this is the world!	stone carving at pagoda

view from our hotel room

Evening Tai Chi for the locals

beautifully lit pagodas

Next morning we set off for Yangshuo via boat along the scenic Li River, which runs in a valley through the karst mountain formations.  This local has inspired Chinese artists throughout time and is even illustrated on the Chinese 20 Yuen banknote. 
 

See the actual location below!

                                                                                  Beautiful Scenery!                                                              


Arriving in Yangshuo (larger than expected, more of a city than the village I imagined), we walked briefly through the famous West Street, a lively pedestrian street lined with shops, restaurants, and bars.  We then headed out of the town to visit the Silver Cave- a beautifully illuminated cave within one of the karst formations.

After the cave, it was off to the Guest House set in Xiatang Village, just outside of Yangshuo.  The inn was a traditional tea house style building with very modern finishes and a balcony with a million dollar view. All food prepared was organic, grown in local gardens by their chefs. We were invited one evening into the kitchen to help the staff make homemade dumplings. Not easy! I made two dumplings to their five.......

Guest House Gardens

Our Stunning Room!

Million dollar view from our guest house balcony!

During our stay in Xiatang Village, we spent time riding bicycles along the Yulong River with our wonderful guide, Sonny.  It was clear that the government spent a great deal of money in designing and constructing a series of multi-use pathways along the river. It certainly gave new meaning to the term “multi-use” with hikers, bicycles, motor scooters, farmers (there were agricultural fields along one side of the path), cows, and water buffaloes! There were several bridges with stairs along the path- clearly someone didn’t think it through in the design phase...

Yulong River...scenes while rafting	continued rafting	one of the many waterfalls we rafted over
our view on the raft	our rower	resting pagoda on the multi-use path along river
just beautiful scenery!	old water wheel along river	yes, a multi-use path for bikes with steps....a minor design flaw!

maybe this sign cautioned about stairs ahead?

new meaning to multi-use path!

legs up.......

We also rode a simple bamboo raft to experience the Yulong River, where we drifted along with a rower using a bamboo rod to guide us over a series of small waterfalls (lifting our legs up at each, as the water comes right up through the bamboo bottom).

The highlight of our stay (as if the scenery wasn’t enough) was the Impression Liu Sanjie Night Show, performed on the Li River with the karst mountains as a backdrop. This show was created and produced by the same artist behind The Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony and was every bit as spectacular. Over 600 people perform in this amazing show, with the surrounding mountains illuminated as part of the show. Words cannot describe, and pictures do not do it justice.

Thus far, this would rank near the top of our favorite places we visited!

So, here's the plan for our adventure in China...