China: Floating Down the Li River

Travel Date 22nd April 2012.
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The Li River flows from its headwaters in the Mao'er Mountains in Xing'an County. In the section between Guilin and Yangshuo it cuts its way through the karst hills and mountains, resulting in a simply stunning short cruise down the river. The Li River is famous in China for the scene on the 20 Yuan note. 

We arranged the trip via the web. A driver turned up at the hotel dead on time. It took about 45 minutes to reach the wharf, south of Guilin. 

I spent most of the trip taking photographs so I'll let them tell most of the story.

There are two main forms of cruising down the river. The larger boats, like ours, leave the wharf about 9am and arrive in the early afternoon. Further downriver we met the fleets of smaller boats, effectively rafts of imitation bamboo (using PVC pipes) for much smaller groups. 

We noticed suppliers of groceries delivering to the stern of the large boats as we travelled along.

One advantage of the larger boats was an on-board lunch, although in our case the timing was more like morning tea. Each boat had a kitchen on the stern. We were served an excellent meal very early at 10:30 am. We guessed the staff wanted to finish clearing up well before arrival. About 1:30 pm after I arrived I felt like a hobbit and had a second lunch.

 

The small raft-boats stopped along the way for picnic lunches.

Arrival in Yangshuo.

The cormorant fishermen no longer ply their ancient trade; I'm not sure why not, possibly it was hard on the birds. They probably make more yuan posing for the tourists these days.

After a relaxing and enjoyable cruise we alighted at Yangshuo and went looking for the car to our accommodation.

Cheers, Alan