Guilin and Yangshuo

We had a wonderful trip over the long Easter weekend to the mountains in China. These are the strange looking mountain scenes depicted in Chinese paintings, very beautiful and magical. To get to this area, we flew into Guilin (75 minute plane flight) that I would describe as a small city. The mountains rise up out of the city and along the large Li River. During our two days in Guilin, we rented bikes and rode from mountain to mountain and strolled along the river.

Originally, we planned to take a river cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo, but China is experiencing a severe drought, and the water level was not high enough for large boats. Thus, we took a 90 minute taxi ride to Yangshuo where we spent 3 days.

Yangshuo is small town and rather westernized due to its famous rock climbing and influx of backpackers. Erik visited Yangshuo while on a business trip a few years ago before we moved to Asia. It was great that he could show me all the places he had visited. Yangshuo is very quaint, but it was super crowded with tourists. Again, we biked and hiked. One day, we took a local bus to a small village where we went on a bamboo raft cruise on the river--so picturesque.

This trip was well-needed, and we had a relaxing yet active time.

Here are Erik's wonderful pictures:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eschrei/sets/72157623703231651/show/

A funky cave in Guilin:Crowds in Yangshuo:On the bamboo raft, we saw the site depicted on the 20 yuan note:These birds were trained to catch fish:Two women in their home preparing dinner. Note that it is a chicken: