GUILIN  

 

My first trip out of Shanghai this year was to Guilin, Guangzi Province, in Southern China.   It is west of Guangdong and Guangzhou and south of Hunan.   It's notable geographic feature is the limestone mountains that have been seen in Avatar and in Star Wars's Revenge of the Sith.  The trip down the Li River is memorable for the scenery.

David Li, my tour guide, is a good friend of the Annie Yao, who arranged all of my tours; he was articulate and talked about his involvement in the 1989 student protests in Shanghai, when he was going to a university there.   He mentioned how the mayor, Zhu Rongi was notable among Chinese national administrators for handling the protests in a peaceful manner.  I didn't get the whole story, but I did sense that David moved to Guilin after the protests since it distanced him from Shanghai and the political scene.  He did say that it took many years before he received his university degree, but he did receive it, whereas one of the other members of his university has never received his degree after participating in the protests.  David also mentioned that Zhu Rongi visited him once a year to see how he was doing.   Zhu was later promoted to Vice Premier of the State Council and was involved in economic development.  David felt Zhu's ability to handle the student protests, among other skills, distinguished him from other administrators, leading to his ascension in Deng Xiaopeng's administration.

Here's the view from the hotel.   Part of the Li River.   The city itself is back in the other direction.  I believe here we are facing south.

 

The Li River trip began in Guilin and ended in Yangshuo, a small town on the river.   Of course, it rained on the river journey, but my Columbia jacket allowed me to stand in the viewing level of the boat, while others, hampered by umbrellas, stayed below.

 On the boat, we were assigned tables.  The table we share was a family group of husband-wife and wife's father from Seattle.   We chatted a little.

See the cave in the limestone wall.

Here is David, my guide.

The weather I was experiencing this day is pretty typical for April through June here in Guilin.  The Monsoons begin in June, and apparently the days clear in July.

 Here is a shot of the 20 yuan bill and the mountains on the bill compared to the mountains we were passing.

The bamboo rafts are common on the river, and many carry tourists, for a close-to-the-water experience.

When we get close to them, it's obvious that the bamboo has been updated  to PVC!

 

 

 We landed in Yangshuo after lunch on the boat, and quickly walked through the tourist shops set up to trap the disembarking tourists.  David was willing to wait while I shopped but I wasn't interested.  It was raining, and we headed to the main road where we would meet our driver, who would take us to our next stop, on the other side of Guilin, the Ludi (Flute) Caves, 180 million years old.

The caves have been illuminated with colored lights which creates a beautiful experience as we walked through.  

DAY 2
 Day 2 consisted of a trip to the Longji (dragon backbone) Rice terraces.  These fields are cared for by the Zhuang people, one of China's 56 official ethnic minorities.  My memory of what he told me says that they were moved here at some time in the past and have been the people who care for these fields.    The terraces were begun in the Yuan Dynasty (1272-1368 ) and were developed over the centuries until the early  Qing (1644-1911).

I was most impressed by the fields, by the magnitude of the labor that had to be put in to create  and the terraces, the difficulty of working the terraces, of maintaining them and of moving the seedlings and getting ready for planting. 

The trip from Guilin was about an hour and a half drive.  There are several fields, the lower ones being the more frequently visited fields, one of which even has a cable car.   We went to the upper field, which, David said, was in its original state and necessitated our walking in, uphill to the top of the fields and the homes of the  Zhuang.  We ate at a restaurant there and visited one of the houses.

As we walked in, we could see a few people working the soil, and beginning to plant rice.