Today was a much anticipated cruise on the Li River from
Guilin to Yangshuo. We did this cruise
during our 2009 trip to China but Paul was sick with a cold and missed much of
it. Plus the weather wasn’t too
good. However, today was pretty
awesome. Although it had rained last
night the day started clear and sunny.
This is an iconic cruise taken by many tourists. There were a large crowds of people waiting to board and many boats heading out at approximately the same time.
For about the first third of the trip the weather was perfect. This stretch of the Li River is featured in many China travel posters.
And we shared the river with many other boats, both large and small.
There were rafts with cormorants and fishermen...
We also saw lots of ducks along the river. Paul wondered if one of them was Ping (from the children's book The Story about Ping). However, I think Ping was on the Yangtze River and not the Li.
Perhaps that is Ping's cousin on the right, lagging behind like Ping did.
It did get a bit hazier as time went on but it stayed pretty good, other than a very brief light shower around noon. Our seatmates were a couple from Germany but they spoke almost no English and we didn’t have much German so there wasn’t much conversation.
This is an iconic cruise taken by many tourists. There were a large crowds of people waiting to board and many boats heading out at approximately the same time.
For about the first third of the trip the weather was perfect. This stretch of the Li River is featured in many China travel posters.
And we shared the river with many other boats, both large and small.
There were rafts with cormorants and fishermen...
We also saw lots of ducks along the river. Paul wondered if one of them was Ping (from the children's book The Story about Ping). However, I think Ping was on the Yangtze River and not the Li.
Perhaps that is Ping's cousin on the right, lagging behind like Ping did.
It did get a bit hazier as time went on but it stayed pretty good, other than a very brief light shower around noon. Our seatmates were a couple from Germany but they spoke almost no English and we didn’t have much German so there wasn’t much conversation.
One stretch of the river is featured on the 20 Yuan bill. See if you can pick out the mountains.
Occasionally our cruise boat would come up close to one of the other ones. Then the tourists would all take pictures of each other.
More Photos of the Li River Cruise.
Once we got to Yangshuo we had to walk down West Street (a major tourist shopping street) to get to our car.
We saw a number of vendors selling "Splat Balls", which are sold by our son-in-law at US state and county fairs...and are pretty popular.
We then headed off to take a ride on a bamboo raft on a lake that had hundreds of rafts with colorful umbrellas to protect the passengers from the hot sun.
It was a slow and leisurely ride and we much enjoyed getting poled around the lake.
The location was beautiful with mountains surrounding the lake.
The lake was actually terraced and had conveyor belt type elevators to move rafts up and over the terraces to the next higher level (usually with a significant splash at the top).
This gentleman missed the entire thing, looking at his cell phone during the entire ride up the elevator. Must have been really important.
The return was down a slide and one could get quite wet.
Today is the start of a four day Chinese holiday so the Chinese were out in force. There seemed to be hundreds of rafts on the lake, occasionally playing bumper rafts. Everyone was in a holiday mood, taking pictures of themselves and everyone else.
Occasionally our cruise boat would come up close to one of the other ones. Then the tourists would all take pictures of each other.
 |
| Everybody say "Cheese". |
 |
| Cooks on another boat |
Once we got to Yangshuo we had to walk down West Street (a major tourist shopping street) to get to our car.
We saw a number of vendors selling "Splat Balls", which are sold by our son-in-law at US state and county fairs...and are pretty popular.
We then headed off to take a ride on a bamboo raft on a lake that had hundreds of rafts with colorful umbrellas to protect the passengers from the hot sun.
It was a slow and leisurely ride and we much enjoyed getting poled around the lake.
The location was beautiful with mountains surrounding the lake.
The lake was actually terraced and had conveyor belt type elevators to move rafts up and over the terraces to the next higher level (usually with a significant splash at the top).
This gentleman missed the entire thing, looking at his cell phone during the entire ride up the elevator. Must have been really important.
The return was down a slide and one could get quite wet.
If HD does not show at end of progress bar, click there for better
quality.
Today is the start of a four day Chinese holiday so the Chinese were out in force. There seemed to be hundreds of rafts on the lake, occasionally playing bumper rafts. Everyone was in a holiday mood, taking pictures of themselves and everyone else.
We saw more than one water fight.
As we were leaving there was a massive raft jam at the 4 or so elevators in the lower lake. Nearest we could figure some rafts were trying to cut in from the side but since they were at least 20 feet long they didn't have room to swing around to get lined up. So nothing much was moving.
The traffic leaving that area was literally gridlocked so after waiting 15 or 20 minutes to see if anything was going to move (it wasn’t) our driver was able to turn around and headed to the hotel another way. Even so we were often in bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic.
The traffic leaving that area was literally gridlocked so after waiting 15 or 20 minutes to see if anything was going to move (it wasn’t) our driver was able to turn around and headed to the hotel another way. Even so we were often in bumper to bumper, stop and go traffic.
We had only about an hour in the hotel before we it was time to head out for the show (our driver was very concerned about traffic). After crawling through the city we ended up
having enough time for dinner before going to get our tickets. We saw the show in 2009 but it was definitely worth
seeing again. When we went through the
ticket gate they handed us poncho packets in case it rained. It rained very briefly just before the start
of the show. Everyone got into the
ponchos and then the rain stopped.
The show is Impressions of Sanjie Liu and takes place on a lake and the surrounding mountains are brought into the production by lighting.
The show is Impressions of Sanjie Liu and takes place on a lake and the surrounding mountains are brought into the production by lighting.
The show included dozens of men on rafts who are fishermen by day and performers by night. It was especially effective when the raised and lowered the long red banners that stretched across the lake.
If HD does not show at end of progress bar, click there for better
quality.
Torches were used for lighting in some of the scenes.
If HD does not show at end of progress bar, click there for better
quality.
There were hundreds of cast members in local ethnic costumes...
and not so ethnic costumes.
There was a crescent moon...
and an illuminated "forest".
If HD does not show at end of progress bar, click there for better
quality.
The show was as good as we remembered it. Unfortunately, just before the finale it started to rain in earnest so everyone ducked into their ponchos. A lot of people left early. For the finale a lot of the performers had umbrellas or ponchos to ward of the rain. Sort of funny but effective.
Performers are wearing lights:
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