With a population of just over 300,000 people (small by Chinese standard), Yangshuo is a delightful town located south of Guilin on the bank of the Li River. It is 4 hours by cruise boat from Guilin via the river, or just 90 minutes by bus. But on any good day, thousands of visitors take the water route to witness the scenic beauty of the karst limestone landscape straddling the Li River. By the way, the whole area is included in the Tentative List of Unesco's World Heritage Site.
.
Four hours after leaving Guilin by boat (see earlier story HERE), we find ourselves in Yangshuo admiring the beauty of Li River. In summer, during the rainy season, the river can swell so much that even our viewing platform here gets flooded!

The late afternoon sun casts an ochre hue onto the limestone hills on the other side of Li River. Below us, the ubiquitous motorised bamboo boats begin to return home to roost for the night.

In the morning, the mist would hang around giving the karst hills a surreal look, while the colourful bamboo boats await customers. Hire one of these and the whole river is yours for the taking, but make sure there's a lifevest handy.

If you are lucky, there is always an old fisherman with his two fish-catching cormorants near the bamboo boats. For a small sum, you can pose with the cormorants for memorable pictures. I suppose this business venture is, for the gent and his sidekicks, more profitable than actually going fishing.

You can spend all day long admiring the splendid river views or you can explore the famous West Street of Yangshuo. It's a smorgasbord of attractions partial to the tourists, and interestingly enough, almost everybody in the street speaks workable English - can't say the same for Guilin. Live webcam image of West Street can be had HERE.

Along West St, we are particularly attracted to this artform - classical Chinese paintings done on the inside of miniature (some are quite largish) glass containers using a thin brush with crooked hardened bristles. Fine steady hands are required, plus a brain which can work in reverse. :)

Yangshuo is a very scenic pleasant town, full of nice people and interesting stuff. Try to spend as much time as possible here, and to explore the wonderful rustic karst countryside as well. Use Guilin as the gateway to explore this magnificent corner of China, and of course, the easiest way to get to Guilin is via AirAsia's daily flight from Kuala Lumpur.

For more pictures on Li River and Yangshuo, please click HERE and HERE. Thanks!

The Li River is a famous waterway in Guangxi Province of southern China, surrounded by amazing karst limestone landscape worthy of inclusion in Unesco's World Heritage Site. Yup, it's that good! So three weeks ago we caught the early morning AirAsia A320 flight from KL to Guilin en route to Li River.
.
Sunrise over the South China Sea finds us enjoying breakfast high up in the sky.

Some four hours later, we are at Guilin Liangjiang International Airport, about 40 minutes drive west of Guilin City. With 1.3 million denizens, smallish by Chinese standard, it is a pleasant modern place surrounded by jagged limestone hills, looking like huge guardsmen.

After a couple of days at Guilin, which is enough for us to soak in the modern cityscape, we find ourselves boarding a cruise boat at Zhujiang docks, 40 minutes by road south of downtown.

Li River is indeed no disappointment, as we immerse ourselves into the magnificent karst landscapes on both sides of the river, said to be 200 million years old and jutting out more than 200 metres into the air.

We even witness an invasion by floating fruit sellers, obviously unauthorised, but nobody seems to care - please right-click photo montage below for a bigger version. Just by expert paddling of their bamboo raft, they catch up with the chugging boat, and latch onto it to secure themselves for business. Fascinating!

However this bit of Li River takes the cake. It's immortalised on the Chinese 20 yuan banknote, and a must-see spot for visitors to China.

I would rate the Li River cruise on par with our Milford Sound trip in New Zealand, and better than our boat ride in Halong Bay, Vietnam. The karst scenery is fantastic, and the 4-hour river journey from Guilin to the town of Yangshuo is thoroughly enchanting and wholly recommended. And only AirAsia can take you there pronto and on time!

For more on the Guilin trip, please visit my travel blog HERE. Thanks!