5.8
This morning we left Guilin city and took a bamboo raft along the River Li to the most beautiful place on Earth, Xingping (兴坪镇, Xìng píng zhèn), a little historical town in Yangshuo county, some 90 km from Guilin. Don't mix this place with the other Xingping (兴平市, Xìng píngshì) near Xi'an. This unforgettable trip is best travelled at a slow pace, admiring the unbelievable mountain scenery around you while floating along the river. These bamboo rafts, a row of them probably made from PVC pipes, were waiting for tourists on the river banks in Yangdi (one hours drive from Guilin) when we arrived. The rafts are simple and look a bit dubious by built, with loose chairs on the deck, but they stay afloat. You can even take a bigger cruise boat on the river, but the experience is not the same and the cruise boats are more crowded.
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| Rafts in a row in Yangdi village |
After some sort of arrangement problems with our one way trip, and a wait of about forty minutes, we were given lifejackets and off we went. The slow pace was perfect enough for photographing the scenery and taking time to marvel it and the local life around the river. The section between Yangdi village (杨堤, Yáng dī) and Xingping is beautiful, and doesn't fall short at all from the longer cruise which, of course, offers more towering karst landscape and sightseeing, but the nearly two hours we spent on the river was enough for us. The weather was great for us and the trip was peaceful, although the motor noise spoiled the mood a bit. It didn't scare off everything though, as we could still see cormorants, fish and ducks on the river. Some people were swimming on the slowly flowing river and fishermen were having lunch on the banks, while their horses took a nap and the fishing cormorants dried their feathers.
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| Scenery from the beginning of the cruise |
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| Fisherman, his horse and cormorants on a break |
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| Surrounded by karst mountains |
There are many sights along the river, but we didn't stop anywhere, although it's possible. One of the biggest sights on the longer cruise, which starts before Yangdi village, is the crown shaped mountain on the east bank of the Li River, in Caoping Town. Inside the mountain is the Crown Cave, also known as Guanyan Cave, which is well known for the variety of transportation one can use while sightseeing. You can even ride a rail car yourself to the mountainside about 3.2 km (two miles) away. At the mountain an elevator descends into the cave, which has five grottoes across three floors. A tramcar also goes to the second floor with stalactites. Among four palm-shaped stone pillars, the tallest one (over 50 meters/164 feet), reaches to the ceiling of the cave. On the third floor is an underground river that is 1,000 m (1,090 yards) long and 500 m (546 yards) wide. You can take a boat here. The cave even has a waterfall.
The raft we were in had a Chinese map of the sights, but as we couldn't translate it and our guide didn't speak English or bothered to point us the sights, we just enjoyed the scenery and created our own names to the formations we thought were some of the sights. The mountains are really impressive, as many of them rise straight from the waters edge to hundreds of meters. Along the river cruise there were even some rock climbing areas, which hopefully we can go back to someday.
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| Karst mountain rising straight from the waters edge |
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| Beach by the mountain |
The river sights between Guilin and Yangshuo are;
The first section:
Elephant Trunk Hill, Chuanshan Park (Cock Fighting Hill, Pagoda Hill), Tunnel Hill, Jingping Hill, Forest of Odd Shaped Peaks, Longmen Village, Father and Son Cave, Daxu Ancient Town, Fire-Boat Hill, Millstone Hill, Bat Hill.
The second section:
Ox Gorge, Dragons Playing the Water, Five Tigers Catch a Goat, Wangfu Rock, Screen Hill, Caoping Town, Crown Cave, Half-Side Ferry, Embroidery Hill, Yangdi Village, Wave-Stone View, A Boy Worships Buddha, Painting Brush Peak, Xialong Village, Apple Hill, Mural Hill, Yellow Cloth Shoal, Chaoban Hill, Xingping Landscape.
The third section:
Water-Dropping Village, Five Fingers Hill, Snail Hill, Pen Holder Hill, Gold Hill, Dragon Head Hill, Overlooking Pavilion, Yangshuo, Green Lotus Peak (Bilian Peak),
Schoolboy Hill (Shutong Hill), Gaotian Scenery, Big Banyan Tree, Moon Hill, Snow Lion Ridge (Xueshi Ridge).
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| A shallow section on the river |
The Nine Horses Fresco Hill (Jiǔ mǎ huà shān, 九马画山), also known as Mural Hill, is near Xingping and offers loads of activities, such as camping, rafting, hiking, rock climbing and cycling. The five peak mountain is over 400 meters high and is an assemblage of weathered rocks in yellow, white, black, grey and green colors. The mural hides nine horse images in various poses, from which I found eight.
As with most Chinese sights, this mural also has a legend behind it. The horses were raised in Heaven and attended by China's classical literature's fictitious character, the Monkey King, who was not happy with his job. He often went back to Huaguoshan Mountain where he lived on Earth and left the heavenly horses unattended. Once, nine of them escaped to Earth. They wandered through the mountains with clear water and blooming flowers and enjoyed the scenery so much that they never returned. Later, they hid in a cave to escape a god from Heaven who had been sent to bring them back. This god discovered the horses while they were bathing in Li River at dawn, and in a hurry to escape they ran into the cliff side, where they were turned into stone images as a punishment. This is just one legend among many about the horses.
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| Nine Horses Fresco Hill/Mural Hill. Can you find all the horses? |
Getting closer to Xingping town (Guangxi Province), about 500 m (550 yards) downriver from Mural Hill, is the karst landscape on banknote CNY 20. This section is called the Yellow Cloth Shoal (黄布倒影, Huáng bù dàoyǐng). If you're not cruising on the river you can still come to Xingping to see this. This part of the River Li is wide and shallow, and on a calm day the river reflects the many hills to the water. The name for this part of the river comes from the large cream-coloured underwater flagstone, which looks like a yellow cloth. The scenery is unbelievably beautiful and because of the shallow waters the place is a popular beach for locals. We later walked to this spot from Xingping town to see the sunset, and the walk only took about ten minutes, so it's very close to the town.
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| Landscape on banknote CNY 20 |
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| Yellow Cloth Shoal at sunset, with people swimming |
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| Yellow Cloth Shoal at sunset |
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This could have loads of climbing routes.
A wall at the Yellow Cloth Shoal. |
The raft didn't take us all the way to Xingping town. We had to change to an electric golf cart, and the drive to our hotel took about fifteen minutes. Our hotel was the same as in Guilin, This Old Place International Youth Hostel (老地方国际青年旅舍, Lǎo dìfāng guójì qīngnián lǚshě), except here the service wasn't as friendly. We had a beautiful mountain view from our nice hotel room, with the river close by.
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| Mountain view from This Old Place International Youth Hostel |
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| Again surrounded by mountains |
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| View from This Old Place International Youth Hostel |
Because there was still daylight for a few hours, we decided to climb on top of Mt. Laozhai (老寨山, Lǎo zhài shān) the same day to see the beautiful mountain view we had heard about. In 2013 it was still free to climb there, but check the fees if you go. The path begins close to the hotel and is a bit tricky to find. Climbing up the takes about 20-30 minutes, for us it took about 20 minutes. The climb is a bit steep and has a steel ladder on the way, so it's not for everyone. There are no views along the way, because of dense forest and the area is unmaintained. When we reached the top we were sweating like crazy because of the humidity. It's good to bring some water with you, if you decide to climb up.
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| A signboard near the beginning of the path |
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| You're on a right path if you see this |
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| The rickety looking steel ladder |
After climbing to over 200 meters you can rest at the small Friendship Pavilion at the top. Most people take their photos from here, but because so many trees have grown to block views we decided to climb a bit more to the telephone tower, where the view is nearly 360 degrees, with the River Li doing a U-turn underneath. This climb is a bit trecherous, because there isn't a path and you have to balance on rocks without any safety fences to catch you if you fall.
Up there we found the perfect place to take photos. Sadly the sun was shining towards us, so we couldn't get good pictures. Come here in the morning or late evening, if you're a serious photographer. The view was so beautiful, that we didn't want to leave. I think we sat there over an hour, enchanted by the sights. After all these years and after all the travelling we've done I still think Xingping is one of the most beautiful places on our planet. The mountain views are so breathtaking, that it's no wonder so many people come here. Xingping has been mentioned in many history books and poets, photographers and other artists have been inspired by the place.
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| View from Mt. Laozhai, below is River Li and Dahebei village. The next pictures continue this scenery nearly 360 degrees to the right. |
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| Dahebei village, surrounded by River Li. |
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| Yellow Cloth Shoal |
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| The other part of Xingping town just across the bridge |
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| Xingping town |
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| Xingping town (left) is nestled between mountains |
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| Yellow Cloth Shoal and Xingping harbour (lower right) |
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| Bridges near Xingping harbour |
The still pretty quiet Xingping town was built over 1,000 years ago, in the Northern and Southern Dynasties (420-589), and in the ancient times it was the largest town along the Li River. It is one of the four most famous ancient towns in Guangxi Province, located at the foot of Wuzhi (five fingers) Hill. The cultural relics in Xingping are mainly located at the fishing village and the Ancient Street and include the civilian residences, which are still in their original appearance with white walls and blue tiles. On both sides of the Ancient Street are the well-preserved assembly halls of every province. On the northeast part of the street is the Shizidan relics of the Xiping County (old name for Xingping). The Guanpang Temple is also here. It was built in the 4th year (1739) of Emperor Qianlong's reign of the Qing Dynasty. The temple's performance stage is well retained and is the oldest stage of its kind in Guilin, which is of a high value for conducting the Guilin opera.
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| Ancient Street under renovation |
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| A quiet street area, with a mountain "peeking" at the end. |
A very quiet and dusty atmosphere welcomed us at the Ancient Street. Only a handful of people were either shopping or sightseeing and the locals were either eating or playing board games. The street seemed to be partly under renovation, partly closed down and empty during our visit. This small street is the main sight and it is just one kilometer long, beginning from the southeast part of the town and ending at the Rongshu Pool and the dock of the Li River.
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| Locals in their daily life |
You can easily walk through the old part of Xingping in a day. This area is easy to walk because it's flat, it is only surrounded by mountains. The town belongs to a hilly area with an altitude above 400 meters. The highest peak of the county is in Yangshuo, the Haopinglong, which is 1,701 meters above sea level. Hundreds of peaks in the county reach above 1,000 meters above sea level. Some of the hills in the area are Sengni Hill, Chaoban Hill, Arhat Hill, Carp Hill, Snail Hill, Bijia Hill, Meinv Peak and Camel Hill.
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| Dusty and quiet Ancient Street, with a mountain behind. |
The town is rich in natural resources, farming rice, shiitake mushroom, corn, toon, peanuts, soybeans, chestnut and sugar cane. The main fruits are Shatian pomelo, persimmon, summer orange, kumquat, wampee, peach and plum. The Ancient Street has a market, where you can buy these fruits and pine candy. Other popular products among tourists are the bamboo and wood carving handicrafts, Qijiang Stone products, landscape paintings and Xingping wooden shoes, which are said to be good for people with diseases such as athlete's foot and foot worm.
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| Market area, with beautiful landscape paintings on sale. |
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| Quiet at the market area |
Xingping mostly attracts nature lovers, who will find loads of activities. You can do various hikes to the surrounding mountains, visit the Lotus Cave (which is over 600 meters long with stalactites) and take a ferry across the river to visit the Dahebei village, which looks cute from the Laozhai mountain. You can even stay the night there. At Xingping town tree lovers will find an ancient banyan tree so thick, that eight people can bearly reach their arms around it. Our visit here was only for one night, so we could only see a fraction of the town.
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| Buildings taken over by nature |
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| Greetings from tourists |
