Guilin and Yangshou, China

Rafting on the Yulong River

From Guangzhou, Larissa, Li Dahua and I flew into Guilin. The karst mountain formations in this area have long been on my Bucket List, and I was not disappointed. For this entire phase of our trip, I felt like I was in a Chinese landscape scroll. The mountains are indescribable—solitary or in groups, steep cliffed, formed into the strangest shapes by water action on limestone. Guilin itself is pretty bland, and we spent only one night there. This gave us plenty of time to climb Solitary Beauty Peak, visit Elephant Hill Park, take a short cruise, and explore town a little. We stumbled upon the famous two pagodas at dusk—a lovely sight.

The next day we connected with driver extraordinaire Ah Ming and drove down to Yangshuo. My advice to anyone visiting this area would be to get to Yangshuo as soon as possible. It’s a vibrant yet charming town surrounded by those incredible karst peaks. We took several cruises of the Li River and its tributaries. The most stunning scenery was along the Yulong River, which we viewed from a two-person bamboo raft. However, if you’ve formed a mental image of a lone raft gliding peacefully along—think again. There must have been 500 other rafts in the small river at the same time resulting in a combination of bumper rafts and water slides, as there were many sets of rapids our polesman had to negotiate while dodging other rafts.

The area also has many enormous cave complexes. The one we visited, Silver Cave, was huge, well-marked, and had everything you want to see in caves—stalagmites, stalactites, curtain walls, stone waterfalls, etc. “10,000 Glossy Ganoderma,” “Solitary Pillar Bracing Up the Sky,” and “Pearl-Decorated Umbrella” were some of the picturesque names of the cave’s formations. That night we saw the show “Impressions” -- an extraordinary light-and-sound show set in a pond against the backdrop of the karst mountains. Don’t miss it if you’re in that area!

                                                                              Daxu

In the Guilin-Yangshuo area there are several relatively unspoiled villages with traditional wooden houses. We visited Daxu and Xingping, the former gearing up for the tourist trade and the latter at just the beginning of this process. My 2004 travel guide described them both as “untouched” —they’re clearly changing fast. In Daxu, an elderly gentleman invited us into his 200-year-old home to see the beautifully carved doors. These houses are surprisingly large on the inside. They’re arranged around a courtyard, with balconied second the backyard.

We had many meals featuring the freshest of fish while there. At one restaurant, we selected our fish from a tub—and then watched it get clubbed with a bat. And it was in Yangshuo that I learned the hard way to be sure I wore my glasses while eating Chinese food—what I thought was a delectable sliver of duck breast turned out to be half a duck foot!

Mimi Santini-Ritt 2011