Today we packed up and checked out of the hotel. There was a large
tour group of Scandinavians that arrived the night before, and so the hotel
set the Western breakfast on a buffet basis, instead of a la carte as it had
been yesterday. A van took us out of town to the starting point for the Li
River Cruise. This cruise passes by many areas with tall limestone
outcroppings that have been the inspiration for countless paintings, prints,
and scrolls. One scene from the river also appears on the reverse of the
twenty yuan note. The tour was mostly foreigners, from a variety of
countries. The Li Jiang is nowhere near as large as the Chong Jiang
(Yangtze) but the gorges here did evoke in my mind the photographs I have
seen of Yangtze cruising in the “old days.” The cruise ended in the town of
Yangshuo. Sue suggested some local activities, each one carrying a rather
high price tag. Again, Bill sought no input on this. We decided against any
of them, and so we returned to Guilin. Penny and I went out to play cards on
a bench in the river promenade. Many people stopped to watch us.
Picturesque river scene.
Water buffalo in her habitat.
Another look at the Li river.
Don't you just love it when translations go slightly awry?
We took the sleeper train to Guangzhou (Canton). Our soft sleeper
berths were quite nice, and the car was as nice as the one in which we rode
from Beijing to Xi’an. We are not sure just who bought the tickets, but one
was in a different cabin. Bill roomed with some Polish tourists, while Penny
and I had the next cabin to ourselves.
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