Today was filled with experiences which left us utterly exhausted by the end of the day. We had booked a cruise down the Lijiang (Li River) and our guide (Zenner, a convinced Buddhist) was waiting for us when we went down to the lobby at 08.30. He drove us for about 50 miles to Yangzhou and provided us with the boat tickets which he had acquired for us after we paid for them at the hotel the night before. Passing through the turnstiles, security devices and passport checks, we boarded boat No.5 and set off on an exotically beautiful cruise down the Li River. There were about 80 people on two decks on the boat and we could climb some stairs onto a promenade deck on the top. The boat soon found its place in a convoy of cruise ships sailing slowly down the river (I counted 14 behind and 6 in front at one point) past the extraordinary rounded peaks for which Guilin is famous. At one point they reached a considerable height with vertical cliff faces of perhaps 1,000 feet. In some of these cliffs we could see the man-made caves in which people were buried in the hope that they (and their valuable goods being taken into the next world) would be safe from looters. The ship provided a buffet lunch which was delicious, and the cruise was a delightful experience. At Yangshang, we disembarked and after a long walk past countless stalls selling tourist tat, we met up with Zenner and set off for further sightseeing. While photographing the Moon Cave (a huge almost circular hole in a mountainside) there was a thunderstorm. We then visited Maling Drum Village, a settlement of the Tung minority who make a living by the women doing embroidery and the men silverwork. Jennifer had her hair massaged by a method used by the Tung which allows the hair to grow to a great length; all the women had very long hair tied into a bun at the back of the head. There was a huge room full of beautiful silver jewellery allegedly made by the Tung, and we saw a young man making it. Jennifer bought some ear rings for Julia. We then went to Silver Cave but Jennifer opted to stay in the car with Zenner, and had a long conversation about Buddhism. Zenner’s younger brother had died in a car crash but is now enjoying his second life. Allegedly. Silver Cave was magnificent; in 2017 we visited Postojna Cave in Slovenia, but Silver Cave is 10 times as big and 10 times as beautiful. The colours are stunning and the rock formations are unbelievable. There are limestone pillars perhaps 100 feet high where stalactites have joined with stalagmites. After a not very good meal at Yangzhou (chunks of pork consisting mostly of bones, and beef meat balls floating in tomato sauce) we then went to the Impression San Jie Liu theatre to see a dramatic story enacted on a huge lake surrounded by conical Guilin mountains. The colours and acting were spectacular. The idea was developed as a means of giving local peasants some work to earn a bit of extra money. We were then driven back to the hotel and, after 17 hours out and about, collapsed into bed.
Our cruise ship
Convoy of cruise ships
Some folks go by raft up or down the river
The barrow slit is a cave with a corpse in it.
The cruise finishes at a small tourist town Yuzhou which has a massive statue of the Pink Panther
A tributary of the Li from which tourists can take a raft to see real fishermen using cormorants to catch fish, and have a try themselves
Our guide Zenner (on the left!)
Moon Mountain
Maling Drum minority village of the Tungs
People singing and offering small cups of rice wine.
Typical Tung embroidery
More singers. Not sure what, if anything, they were selling
Photo of the old village before it was knocked down and the new village built
The new village. Jennifer feeling exhausted at this stage
Jennifer having her hair massaged. She felt better than that.
The silver market. She felt even better now.
Making silverware
A huge room crammed with silver objects such as bracelets, brooches, ear rings etc.
Silver Cave
Hard to believe but… When I took this photo it said “stand outside the noodle”. Obviously a mis-translation that got mysteriously corrected while in the bowels of my phone. Chinese words have several meanings distinguished by intonation. The same word evidently includes “one-metre” and “noodle” when translated into English.
