Guilin 桂林市 - Li River 漓江

Li River, also known as Guishui River or Gui River, takes its source at Mao’er Mountain in Xing’an County, which lies to northeast Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. Li River makes its way through Guilin and Yangshuo and merges into Xijiang River in Wuzhou. The mountains on the banks over 40 kilometers long between Guilin and Yangshuo display their extraordinary beauty as a result of the development of the limestone. More than 40,000 hills lie along the two sides of the river, covering a total length of more than 150 kilometers. With their astonishing resemblance to bamboo shoot, screen, elephant and camel, these mountains, together with green banyans and green bamboo as well as the cottages and fishing boats, contribute to form a scenery picture depicting a haven of peace dominated by green. It has a total length of more than 430 kilometers. In the past it was thought that Li Rever shares the same source with Xiaogjiang River. A watershed divides the two rivers, one flowing to the north and the other to the south. Li River meanders southward like a belt flanked by mountains and marvelous peaks. The 83-kilometer-long waterway from Guilin to Yangshuo is especially spectacular. Cruising on this section of the river the tourist feels very poetic. The town of Xingping is located at a vend of Li River down in the south. Cruising 13 kilometers upstream from here, the tourist will find the most beautiful scenery of Li River. The nearby mountains resemble green screens while the remote mountains seem to be in smoky mist, and their inverted reflection in water are blackish green. Even the air seems to have been tinged with green. Green is the essence of the beauty of Guilin. Sailing southward, the tourist will be fascinated by the inverted reflections of mountains and hills in water.

The ride on the boat from Guilin to Yangshuo is 6 hours long and on the way there are nine sights to see. On the mountains the tourist can see along the way, there are whiter colours from years gone by that make pictures in the mountains. Some of the pictures were called, “bat hill” (two bats flying off the cliff), “pagoda hill,” and “nine horse.” If you look carefully in one of the horse’s ears is another dark-coloured horse looking straight at you.

People often say that the green is a colour indicating life. In this green world, you feel that all your worries associated with secular affairs have suddenly disappeared. This is a green paradise where you sense the link between your heart and the nature as well as the fusion of your life and the world.

The World Bank-financed project to protect the ecosystem that exists on both sides of the Li River in Guilin, one of the China’s most popular tourist destinations, has made significant progress since earlier 2000.

When visitors take a boat trip out on the Li River, they can watch the cormorants or ospreys (like the similar cormorants they are the expert fishers, diving to considerable depths in order to spear or grasp prey with their pointed bills) catching fish for the fishermen. They tie a string around the bird’s neck just tight enough so that it cannot swallow the fish it may catch. About six birds are taken out on a flat bamboo raft. The fishermen tie them by a rope to the boat. Then he pushes them into the water. Then he makes this sound and they start diving for fish. When one catches a big one, the fishermen pulls it in and puts it back up on the raft. The fish tail is at the top of the bird’s mouth and he “massages” it back out of its mouth. It is put in a bucket. Back in the water the bird goes to try and catch another. It is so weird. They use no baits; no hooks and the birds do all the work !

The Li River in Guilin (Forest of Osmanthus) is the scene of the fantastic and imaginatively shaped mountains that figure in so many Chinese landscape paintings and are the motif of choice for many postcards. Scenes of life along the river punctuated by water buffalo, passing bamboo boats and more will keep your attention for better than three hours. Lunch on board the riverboat Optional visit to Jewellery Factory and other antiques, handicrafts and art markets time permitting, and guidance for those who wish to discover these markets on their own during independent time.

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