Guilin part 1 the Li River

Guilin is located in southwest China, in Guangxi province. The city is renowned for its unique scenery of strangely shaped hills or karsts that  are lush with vegetation. The town itself is surrounded by two rivers and 4 lakes and sits in the middle of these karst hills. Guilin has a history going back over 2000 years and is now an important political, economic and cultural center for Guangxi. Guilin is the most popular tourist destination in all of china.

There are many scenic places to visit within a short distance of Guilin, one very popular destination  is the Lijiang River and the smaller villages that run down stream of Guilin. The Li River tour starts just outside of Guilin and meanders through some of the most spectacular limestone karst formations on a slow boat ride down to Yangshou. Based on how fast the river is flowing the trip could take the whole day. ME and I visited Guilin and some Li River villages over a long weekend.

We started our rafting trip down to Xingping village, which is half way between Guilin and Yangshou, were we stayed in a small village across the river from Xingping. The next day we did a morning walk up one of the karst called Snail Hill and visited a temple. June starts the rainy season and the forecast for the weekend was showers, high humidity around 80%+ and temperature in the lower 70's. Over all we were very lucky with the weather and it seemed we were able to time the showers just right.

Below are pictures of the rafts, each hold 2 to 4 people. At one time they were made out of bamboo, now there are PVC pipes with ribs in them to look like bamboo.The trip took about 2 hours to reach Xingping village.

the entry point to the rafting trip on the Li River

ME on our raft

cursing down the river

around every bend a new range of karsts appeared 

the entrance to the B&B we stayed in

the garden

view of the garden from the 2 second floor

view from our room

our guide on the left and the owner of the B&B on the right

a mud brick home in the village

way off in the distance the village we stayed in

women and child we meet on our walk

the path going between the small villages

mud barn in background with mud bricks

stone barn on path