Li Jiang Cruise and Yangshuo

Students met in the lobby of the dormitory at 8:20am Saturday morning for the bus ride to the dock where they would embark for Yangshuo, cruising along the Li River. Some people mistakenly call it the “Lijiang River”, which translates as “Li River River” because “jiang” means “river”.

The weather forecast was clear and hot. Early in the morning, the sun was out but the heat hadn’t quite reached down to cause any great oppression so students were quite optimistic about the river cruise. The bus ride to the dock was less than an hour and after going through a makeshift security checkpoint along with almost one hundred other tourists heading for Yangshuo, the UW students had a chance to mill about in the dock’s gift shop before boarding the riverboat.

The riverboat was two stories tall, with a kitchen in its rear. There were about twenty 6-person tables on the left and right-hand sides of the boat and a large deck on the 2nd storey. There was also a small, private room on the 2nd storey for 1st-class passengers. The cruise to Yangshuo takes four hours and one ticket covers lunch as well as fare.

As the boat glided along the Li Jiang, smaller boats selling fish and vegetables would pull up to the boat’s kitchen and peddlers would sell their wares, which were to become lunch for the students on board. Also on the river were several bamboo rafts manned by one or two young men. The men used long poles to move about on their rafts and would do a little dance with the large riverboat as it approached them in the water, eventually pulling along side the riverboat, throwing a rope over a post and using the opportunity to hawk gems, crystals, jade objects, straw hats and other wares. Their rafts put them at the level of passengers inside the boat, and after several cries and taunts for suggested bargains, they would usually find a willing customer.

It is said that long ago, men would raft up and down the Li Jiang, searching for a mate through song. They would call up and down the banks at twilight, and if a woman were willing, she would sing back in response. If the singing seemed a good match to both, the man would pitch his raft to shore and take away his new bride. There was little singing coming from the rafts on this day, save when a hawker had managed a good sale with an easy customer.

Throughout the cruise, a waiter went through the cabin offering passengers various libations. While coke and sprite and beer were the typical fare, he also hoisted a large decanter crammed full of various snakes of different size and color. Swimming in alcohol, the dead snakes are said to excrete a potent chemical that gives vitality to the drinker of this strange mix. One student purchased a glass and passed it around for others to try. Resembling formaldehyde, the potion doesn’t sell on taste alone.

Lunch was served an hour before arriving in Yangshuo. Students returned to the lower level to enjoy various dishes prepared with vegetables and fish taken from along the Li Jiang. While sitting at the table, it was impressive to notice the constant change of the landscape on either side of the boat. The river isn’t too wide and along each bank, the scenery was constantly changing. At times, a field would span out from the bank, water buffalo basking in the verdant shore grasses. At other times a sheer cliff wall leaped from sky to water in one vertical swoop. The egg-drop shaped mountains and hills rose at different heights and from various distances so that no two were the same in color. The greens, blues, purples, and grays changed with every turn in the river and shone brightly when the sun peeked out from behind swiftly moving clouds.

The riverboat arrived in Yangshuo just as several others were arriving and the dash to dock was cacophonous with peddlers approaching tourists and tour guides shouting into loudspeakers. The UW group moved quickly through the streets by the dock and broke into smaller groups in order to shop in Yangshuo’s market streets. Several of the female students purchased clothing known specifically in Guangxi Province as being a local style.

It being noon when the students arrived in Yangshuo, the full force of the sun’s heat had reached the ground and while some students couldn’t be dissuaded from shopping no matter the temperature, others focused on cooling off. These students found their way to Kentucky Fried Chicken to enjoy the air conditioning, the clean bathrooms and the best and cheapest coffee available in China.

Students were given an hour for shopping. Afterwards, several students rented bicycles, some rented tandem bicycles to give the experience of bicycle riding in China an extra, added thrill. Yangshuo is known for its fabled rice fields, tucked away between the sloping, awkwardly spaced mountains, and the best way to visit them is by bicycle. The group tried its best to keep together, weaving through traffic ranging from other cyclists to large eighteen-wheelers carrying huge machinery and loose gravel and sand.

At one point the cyclists crossed a bridge over a small river and paused at its banks for a quick rest. This particular spot was a destination for tourists wishing to take a raft ride up or down a river between rice fields, but the raft trips were excessively expensive and so the group snapped some photos and moved on. Some students returned to Yangshuo’s center while other students continued further out into the countryside. These students passed cave entrances, saw small, seemingly forgotten bridges hung between two mountains, and witnessed the peace of the rice fields and the villages outside the bustle of Yangshuo.

Returning to the town center after the bike ride, some students chose to continue shopping while others enjoyed a quick massage before dinner. Students met at the “Mei You” (Don’t Have) café for dinner and then returned to Guilin by bus that evening. As the two-hour ride approached its end, the rain came down and stayed in Guilin through the next day.