The Guilin Sheraton has a large, open lobby area on the ground floor that is surrounded by ascending levels of balconies with rooms that each open to the balcony area on each floor. The buffet breakfast, accompanied by live piano music, is bountiful and scrumptious. Anna helps herself to an assortment of noodles and mango amongst the array. We all meet in the lobby at the agreed time to climb aboard the small bus to head for the embarking point for the 4 hour long Li River cruise. Short for Lijiang River according to the brochure.
Lili points out the osmanthus trees that line the streets in Guilin.
The scenery includes the karst mountains in the distance and we pass by many rice fields en route. This area appears to be primarily an agricultural area. Very rural.
The traffic rules seems to be few and far between as the lines, when they exist, don't seem to mean much. There are as many bikes - more scooters, probably, on the wide margins of the roads - as there are cars, buses, trucks. The bicycle traffic includes plenty of all manner of arrangements of bicycles with umbrellas for shade as well as rain to bicycles with trailers piled high with goods of all sorts.
All the traffic weaves in and out with one another quite easily and comfortably without incident though it's hard to fathom how. Looks like there are only inches or seconds to spare from calamity, but no one appears to have any angst.
Our boat for the cruise is a large ferry-like boat with tables and plush, faux leather seating next to large windows sandwiched between the aft and fore decks where we can go outdoors to view the scenery, too. Our cruise boat is one of 7 or 8 that start along the river in succession. Our guide, Lili, describes that the Li River is fast flowing and there are many underground caves in the topography making it a very dangerous river for swimming except for the local people. The width of the river only appears to be about 100 yards or so. I'm sure that's probably not the correct distance but it gives an idea about how narrow it appears. The cruise begins at the Zhujiang Wharf and will end at the Yangshou County stop. Lili points out that the most beautiful scenery is between Yangdi and Xingping Town, about half the length of the cruise.
The scenery appears pastoral as we pass by green fields, clusters of water buffaloes - some swimming near the shore, fishermen on bamboo rafts that have baskets mid-ship. I notice only one long raft with a row of cormorants sitting along it. We pass areas where there are bunches of rafts pulled up on the shores in some places and beaches with umbrellas and people in swimsuits sitting in beach chairs in others. As we go by the karst mountains closely, it is clear what Lili means by the caves, because there appear to be lots of crevices and larger caves in the topography. There is a certain jockeying for position in the line of cruise boats and horns blare as we pass another or are passed. Anna and Becky enjoy the scenery for a while and then do each other's hair in various styles. Lunch is served family style - a combo of things plus some Chinese beer. From what we can see astern on the other boats, there is a kitchen station aft just above the waterline of the boats where the cooks stir fry the food and the dishwashing takes place. Hmmm... Makes me a bit uneasy about the food hygiene aspects of what we're eating and our plates and utensils, but oh well... I notice that the family (from Portland, Oregon) adjacent to us at a table do not have lunch served to them (- they have brought snacks instead) so I gather that the meal is optional. 4 hours of this scenery seems very pleasant and relaxing.
When it's time to disembark, too soon we encounter a gauntlet of folks hawking all sorts of items from their open storefronts. I find this aspect of travel here very uncomfortable. More on that later... Lili ushers us into a store that she describes as run by minority girls where they do fine embroidery. Some of it appears to be handmade but much of it appears machine made. We can't even move around to look at anything without one of the young saleswomen coming over to stand next to you to encourage you to buy something. Really uncomfortable. Not to mention the heat and humidity. Really uncomfortable.
On the bus once again, we head off to Guangxi Normal University, a college for art teachers, where we will have a lesson in Chinese painting. The seven of us sit in the first few rows of a room of folding chairs in a room that is surrounded by paintings, all priced to sell. Li Qing, one of the college teachers, demonstrates brush painting technique by painting a landscape on rice paper right there. Some of us take a turn with the brushes on another paper that is next to her sample. She agrees to paint a second landscape so that Gail can buy one and our family can buy one. The one we buy is entitled "The Elegant View along the Li River". Anna also chooses another brush painting to buy that includes some flowers and some birds. We walk around the grounds for a bit before getting back aboard the bus to go back to the hotel where we go back to our rooms briefly before meeting Lili in the lobby to head out for dinner.
We go to a local restaurant named "Guilinese", I think, based on the name on the tissue packet on the table. There is a frenzy of people milling around peering at serving stations all through the large area with food platters that sit on open tables. The process of ordering involves finding a waiter or waitress to write the desired order on a ticket, and the food is brought to the table. Lili stays with us long enough to see our orders to the table and then departs. (This aspect of traveling in China has not changed: Guides like Lili never join the tourists for meals or activities except for introductions). We share a combo of items that include dim sum buns with pork, fried rice with chili peppers in it - just the right amount, pickled cucumbers, steamed pea pods, and wonton soup - all delicious, we agree, in spite of the madhouse atmosphere. (In the course of our trio, we've learned that chili peppers are a sign of good luck which is a good thing to know since one of Anna's notecard motifs is a group of 3 chili peppers.)
After dinner, we walk back to the hotel through the congested shopping district where we meet Lili in the lobby of the hotel and she accompanies us to the nearby Lijiang Cultural Institute to see a show about the "minority nationality song and dance" traditions of "Fantastic Guilin". The lively, hour and a half long, musical show is made up of acrobats and dancers in very colorful costumes. One of the themes of the show involves a wedding with the tradition of a specially made embroidered twelve-sided ball that is tossed from the girl to the guy as a symbol of love, Lili explains to us later. As part of the show, the main female character tosses the ball out into the audience and it lands right in Anna's lap! Later in the show, more are tossed out and Becky gets one also. We take photos after the show with and of some of the performers. One group of young women in the silver ornamental headdresses have notably flat expressions on their faces and, distressingly, don't respond visually at all to our appreciation. Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that...
We walk back to our hotel. It's been a very full day and we 're all very tired. I'm a bit concerned that I'm getting behind in my journaling, but I love the IPad for the task. It is now Thursday and we are in Guangzhou. I am catching up on writing in our room at the White Swan Hotel since our flight to Nanjing has been delayed by several hours. I am grateful for this bit of time to catch up as Richard has relayed to me that the family, specifically Grandma, is awaiting word about our doings. I'm writing the journal and Richard is dealing with the task of sending the info though it seems that there are a few kinks in that process, depending on our whereabouts and how much money we want to spend on the airwaves! Due to this, we haven't been able to set up our blog yet. We'll probably put a whole bunch of entries from this journal on the blog all at once when we can. In the meantime, Richard has resorted to e-mailing what I've written so far.
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