We all hired bamboo rafts to drift for a couple of hours down the quiet atmospheric Yulong River just out of Yangshuo. This was one of the highlights of the whole trip; the scenery was great and the song of the pole men on the rafts completed the experience.That evening we attended a performance of Guilin Impressions, a music, dance and light show set on the Li River itself with several illuminated limestone peaks providing an impressive backdrop. It was a good show. Being a week-night we expected a relatively small crowd but the vast sea of tourist and other coaches we had to walk past to get to the entrance quickly put paid to that notion.
Next morning before dawn we travelled by bus to Xinping north of Yangshuo, and there transferred to a motor boat for an early morning cruise along the famous Li River. Along the way we stopped to admire the vista that appears on the 20 Yuan chinese banknote.
Later in the day this river would be teeming with much larger tourist boats making the popular daily passage from Guilin to Yangshuo. The River Li is much larger than the Yulong and the mountains surrounding it higher. But for us, it was the Yulong experience that stands out in our memories.
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