Li River Cruise

I have wanted to visit this part of China for decades. Today was a dream come true. The karst (limestone) terrain here is world famous and truly spectacular. Dr. Seuss would be proud of these mountains.

We were picked up at our Guilin hotel by our taxi driver extraordinaire and he brought us to the dock for this cruise down the Li River to Yangshuo. We made it just in time for our late morning departure. On the boat, for the first time, we saw many other tourists - mostly Europeans. Somehow this was comforting to me. Up until now, we had seen very few tourists really and that had surprised me.

No sooner had we started down the river then a local Chinese businessman cruised up next to our boat and latched on to sell his wares, mostly jade objects as far as I could tell. This type of thing happened all the time in China. Sell, sell, sell, hound, hound, hound. We were not in the USA any more.

A typical view on this 4-hour boat ride. I took way too many photographs and a few videos as well.
Laurie and Colin enjoying the unobstructed views from the top of the boat:

Somehow this image is China in my mind and here I was seeing it first hand. Incredible.

We had a very good lunch on the boat ride. We were just beginning to sample all the incredible food that China has to offer: