The karst hills in Yangshuo
Far from the crowded, smoggy streets of Beijing, there is a fairytale land of oddly-shaped mountains in the province of Guangxi. The mountains here, familiar to anyone who has ever looked at the artwork in a Chinese restaurant, are a form of karst topography resulting from the dissolution of limestone by groundwater. To get there, we flew from Beijing to Guilin, a small city (by Chinese standards) located in semi-tropical southern China.
Marble foot bridge in Guilin
The city of Guilin has several rivers, lakes, and canals passing through it, and (unlike Seattle) most of the waterfront area has been set aside as public parkland. You can walk for miles along the water here on paved trails that are overhung with bamboo and other tropical plants. It is almost like the whole waterfront area is one big botanical garden. There are numerous foot bridges, pavilions, pagodas, palaces and temples scattered along the waterfront, and rising behind it all are the bizarre limestone mountains for which the area is so famous. One of our favorite things in Guilin was the lovely "Four Lakes, Two Rivers" boat tour, a two hour night time cruise in which all the sights of the city are illuminated in vivid colors.
The same bridge at night
An evening view of the Sun and Moon pagodas
After a couple days in Guilin, we headed to the town of Yangshuo on the famous Li River cruise, a four hour drift through some of the most astounding landscapes imaginable. When we got on the boat they didn't have enough seats for us, so Jen and I were upgraded to the VIP room, which we shared with a large and apparently wealthy Chinese family. While we spent the majority of the trip on the roof of the boat staring in wonder at the impossibly shaped hills, our fellow VIP suite-mates closed the curtains and gambled with stacks of money. Perhaps they had seen it all before. Everyone else on the boat was up on the roof with us taking countless pictures that could never do justice to what we were witnessing.
At one point along the way a daring man came up to us on a bamboo raft that was loaded down with fruit. Like a pirate with a grappling hook, he attached himself to the side of our boat and sold us bunch of lychee fruit.
The boat dropped us off in the town of Yangshuo, a formerly sleep little town that has now exploded into a major tourist destination. Now I have heard many people complain about how hoards of Chinese tourists are ruining the world's great destinations, but I find that just take the right attitude it isn't really a problem. Yes there are lots of them, but it's their country, and if they want to see it, more power to them. I find that with a little internet research you can find ways to enjoy the sights and get away from the crowds. For instance, there is a little place outside of town on the Lulong river called Yangshuo Mountain Retreat. Take a look at the view from the hotel...
A room with a view: take a look at the view from our balcony!
Sunset at Yangshuo Mountain Retreat
The area around the Mountain Retreat was absolutely sublime. We swam in the river, rode bikes through little villages, hiked between the karst hills, and rode bamboo boats down the river. Bamboo boats are a big thing in this part of China. You see people using them to transport goods to market, to cast nets for river shrimp, to take people on scenic rides (we couldn't resist), and the strangest use is for fishing with cormorants. Yes, as in birds. There is a traditional method of fishing that is still practiced in southeast Asia, where cormorants are fitted with a neck collar that prevents them from swallowing the fish they catch. They are trained to bring the partially swallowed fish up the boat, where the fisherman retrieves the fish and puts in in a basket. In order to keep the bird working, it is allowed to eat every fifth fish it catches.
Fishing for shrimp on a bamboo raft
In addition to weird-looking lumpy mountains, the chemical erosion of the limestone by groundwater has produced a number wonderful caves (sorry, the pictures didn't come out), and a few other oddities including Moon Hill (below). The path up to the opening in the mountain runs through a lovely bamboo forest, and involves over 800 stairs, but the views from the top were totally worth the sweaty effort of getting there.
Evening light on Moon Hill
The arch of Moon Hill is over 150 high.
Looking out from Moon Hill at sunset.
Well that's it for now. Thanks for reading. There is still more about China that we want to share, but that will have to wait.
