Guilin - Day 2

Our itinerary for the day was a cruise on the Li River, a visit to a pearl factory, and to the Reed Flute cave in Guilin.

Our cruise took us 52 miles along the river and lasted about four hours, including lunch on the boat. The mountains are very green since the area gets a lot of rain, about 80 inches per year.
 

Water buffalo along the river banks.
 

The way the river winds through the mountains, twisting and turning, was very beautiful. It would be a fun river to canoe and camp along the shores. Maybe this could be a future Bunch activity (:-).
 

Those are really jagged peaks. The mountains are most unusual in the way they are shaped, but I did not get a good explanation as to how they were formed. 
 

A bamboo raft powered by a small outboard motor.
 

This is "Nine Horse Cliff". Can you see nine horses in the shapes formed by the exposed rocks in this cliff? I can see a few, but not nine. I think the Chinese have a better imagination..
 

Greetings from the Li River, Guilin, to all our friends back in the U.S.!  Maybe you will get a chance to see this someday.
 

After lunch the waiters brought around a bottle of "snake wine" to see if anyone wanted to order a small glass of it; there are three snakes, including a cobra, in the bottle. We declined the invitation to taste it.
 

They also had a  local rice wine that Vern decided to sample. After seeing this expression on his face, the rest of us chickened out from trying it. It was about 50% alcohol.
 

The cruise ended at a small town called Yangshou, where we were met by our bus to take us back to Guilin. A thunderstorm rolled in as we were docking in Yangshou. To get to the bus we walked through a market which our guide referred to as the "Hello Market". To get your attention, the vendors yelled, "Hello! Cheaper here", or "Hello, table cloths here - cheaper for you", or whatever they happened to be selling. But the pouring rain dampened any enthusiasm for shopping.

Back in Guilin, stopped at a pearl factory where we got an explanation of sea water and fresh water pearls and saw a fashion show featuring different pearl jewelry.
 

Sylvia is being shown a black pearl necklace. Her birthday is in two days, since Vern got her a very nice early birthday present.

 

Our last stop for the day was at the Reed Flute cave. It was pretty much the same as many caves in the U.S., although they seemed to do more with different colored lighting in the cave. Sorry, no pictures. It was too dark to get decent pictures without a tripod.

Tomorrow we fly to Shanghai and then take a bus to Suzhou, a small city a couple of hours from Shanghai.