Day 153 – Guilin and The Li River

Shortly after we got on the boat, this guy came up, hooked this bamboo raft to the side and started selling pomellos, tangerines, peanuts, and other things.  When we go to a certain point, he unhooked and left.  Others came along the way later.

These two mounds are supposed to look like a bat with his wings outstretched.

How ghostly they look in the distance.  It was rather foggy today, I think it is like that a lot here.

When the river is low, people come out and dig the sand for constructions... by hand.

A cave along the way.  The mounds are also know for their caves.

A close up look of one.

Just so unusual!

An arch.

We were out of the hotel and on the road shortly after 8:30 this morning.  I had gotten up early and went to find the Internet in the lobby.  After a frustrating time trying to publish the blog, as soon as the blog loaded, I went to go get breakfast so that we could be down to the bus on time.

It took about 45 minutes to ride to the river and we got on the boat.  It was a two level deal with an open deck on the very top.  We sat at tables for the start, but pretty soon, we were out on the front and the back of the boat taking tons of pictures!  The karst (the name of the mound type forms that we were seeing) is made of limestone and that indicates that it was once under the ocean.  Erosion has made them look the way they are.

These are like taxis on the Li River.  They raft is often made of bamboo, but they are starting to make them of PVC pipe also.

We cruised for 5 and a-half hours.  It took that long because of how low the river is at this time of year.  We scraped the bottom several times.  They served us a buffet lunch and after the initial excitement of the landscape became more commonplace, we took naps, played some games and visited. 

We arrived in Yangshuo about 3 p.m. and had a long walk to the hotel through all the vendors that line the way there.  We had a half hour to check in and get our luggage up to our rooms and then had to be back in the lobby for the next adventure of the day; riding carts to see the rice fields.  The carts stopped every so often so that we could take pictures… and be accosted by local vendors. 

 

This truck is for my SIL, Tony.  We thought he might be interested in the motor on this thing!

They dropped us off at the restaurant for dinner, a typical Chinese meal, but very good, and then we walked back to the hotel and had 10 minutes to be back down after we got our jackets for the last adventure of the day.  We had to walk back down to the river so that we could get on some of the bamboo rafts that had benches placed on them and go out to a calm part of the river and watch the cormorants dive for fish.  It was fascinating to watch them dive and swim.  It was dark, so they had lights fixed onto the rafts so we could see.  Then we pulled up onto the shore and the old man let us have one of the birds sit on our shoulder and we took pictures. 

 

The cormorants waiting to perform.

David holding a cormorant.

After we got back to the place we started, we went back through all the vendors that lined the way and looked for souvenirs and some ice cream.  It has been a fun, full, adventure filled day!

The karsts of the Li River, China