September 10, 2026
The Guilin area of southern China is known to have some of the most stunning karst rock formations. We took a bamboo cruise boat with a tiny electric motor, from the villages of Yangdi to Xingping this morning. The rafts are limited to 4 guest each - so I road with a Chinese family, there on vacation from the Beijing area, who was very sweet. Mom and Dad spoke no english, but their son, who is in his final year of college study environmental science, was able to converse and intrepret what the driver said to me the whole ride, about one hour.
I bought my fresh flower crown from a local, elderly lady, who was quite persistent, while we were waiting along the shoreside. The wreath was just 75 cents and I thought added a little sparkle to the day! The mountains scenery was stunning and our guide told several stories about the peaks. Most notable was the view down river, which is actually capture on China's 20 CNY note, and shows 20 peaks. Another is the rock formation, we are standing in front of, where you can imagine 9 horses (as sketched next to it). In Chinese culture horses symbolize a bright future, so back in ancient times students would come here to see the horses and gain better prospects for a bright future.
After our cruise we headed to a local village for lunch. Here we found out that the red ribbons with black script ,we see on every doorway is something the Chinese change out each New Year, to bless their homes. I tried a sweet & sour pork dish with tea.
After lunch was the big adventure of the day, hiking up to the top of one of the kryst to get a view from on top, it was quite the climb! We lost Sherrie pretty early on, put pushed each other to keep going. We got a little crazy when we made the summit.
We rounded out the end of the tour with another bamboo raft trip, this time gondala style, no motors, on another section of the river.
