Yangshuo and Water

Sunday, April 18, 2010

li river

Yangshuo County is all about water. We travel from Guilin on the scenic river cruse. The landscape is made up of fantastic shapes eroded from the limestone bedrock by thousands of years of rain erosion. When the river level is lower during dry periods, the boat cruse starts further along the river, but we are lucky because it has been raining for many days now and the water is high. We power down the river with hardly enough time to appreciate the scenery. The hills are all the ones you see on ancient Chinese landscapes.

li river4

Our guide, Joy, (or Mr. Hu – Who? - his joke not mine) points them out - “See that hill that looks like a big apple? We call that Big Apple Hill. And over there, the spire that looks like a writer's brush? That is Writer's Brush Spire.” In Yangshuo, the /humidity is extreme, and condensation is on eyeglasses, camera lenses, tile floors – everywhere. Walking leads to sweating. I soon realize that wearing a rain jacket is two muggy and that an umbrella is all you need. The river has heavy morning fog that I swear is coco brown, like the river. Traditional cormorant fishermen float by on bamboo rafts.

fisherman

They fish with trained cormorant birds who dive for the fish and return them to the raft. Neck collars keep the birds from getting greedy and swallowing the catch.  The river is nearby and is so high that they have canceled the boat cruses. Ours was the last for a little while, and we are fortunate to get here in the brief window between dry period and the too much rain period.