River Cruise

Sunday, October 17

Today we were again on a cultural day. That means we behave like tourists!.  We got up early, had a Western style breakfast and headed to the bus for a 30 minute ride to the Li River for a 4-5 hour cruise on one of the most scenic rivers in the world. Guilin to Yangshou – 52 miles. The shallow river winds through a mystical landscape with tall karst peaks on both sides of the river. The limestone formations have been weathered into very spectacular shapes. This is the area that inspired the set of Avatar and you can really see the similarity.  The cruise included a buffet lunch, but I stuck to rice and noodles. I have been healthy thus far and didn’t want to test myself with the boat food.

By the way, they openly charge more for the cruise to foreign tourists. They even have different boats for foreign and domestic tourists. The weather was a bit steamy. It is a rather tropical feel here compared to the weather in Beijing which was much like Iowa fall. We disembarked in Yangshou, which was a very interesting resort/fishing village. The area is changing very fast and what used to be a rather primitive fishing village is now developing as a tourist attraction.

Fisherman float on river using bamboo rafts.

Water buffalo "grazing" from the river

Phoenix bamboo trees - there are thousands of varieties of bamboo - this is only one