All around us are pointy and round hills, loads of them. They fill the skyline and surround the town/village we are in, which is called Yuangshou (and hour outside Guilin). We’d heard that there is one such hill nearby that you can climb up and visit another well placed Buddhist temple overlooking the Li River, so this morning that’s what we did! We woke up early and ventured out, and enjoyed the views from the hill top temple. It was a lovely place to visit especially with no one else around.

A couple of hours later we headed off to find a cup of tea. We saw a sign for a tea house on the way in to town which also had free wifi, so we headed for there. It was a strange place, we followed the sign through a clothes shop and up some stairs past a second level of clothes, up some more stairs and in to a tiny little tea house with just enough room for us. It was a gorgeous place to rest and have tea, plus they had free wifi, bliss!
We’d done far too much to day (climbed a hill and drank tea) so we headed back to the hotel for a rest.

In the evening we went out on a small boat to see the fishermen fishing with Cormorants, you know like on telly! We putted along behind an old bamboo boat full of these slikly black birds who when they reached a certain spot all jumped in after fish. You probably know, but the birds have string around their necks so that when they catch a big fish they can’t swallow it, and the fisherman collects it from them, but they can swallow the smaller ones. It was very special to see this partnership upclose, and loads of fun to go boating on the Li River at night.

Tomorrow we’ve got a morning flight to Shanghai, our last major destination. No idea what to expect but certainly looking forward to it.

After a full days travelling yesterday we arrived in Guilin tired and ready for bed, but through the dark and our sleepy eyes we could just make out the looming shapes of the mountains which surround the city.

Today we woke up refreshed and ready to take in the scenery on our cruise down the Li River. The cruise took around 5 hours and gave us plenty of time to relax and take in the stunning scenery as the river winds it’s way through the famous mountains. The cruise finishes up in Yangshuo where we will stay for two nights before our final internal flight to Shanghai. After settling into the hotel we took one of the electric golf carts that act as taxis around town and the driver took us on a trip out to the countyside. It didn’t take long as once you exit the town centre itself you are there in amongst the rice fields and water buffalo. We saw local people harvesting the rice and working the fields. We continued our tour through the muddy tracks around some local homes. Our trip back was interesting as we zipped in and out of more crazy Chinese traffic narrowly avoiding the suicidal drivers and cyclists.

In the evening we decided to see another show. This one was perfomed in front of the worlds largest natural theatre, which means it used the mountains as the backdrop. The result of this is jaw dropping. In front of the mountains the performance (choreographed by the same guy who did the olympics opening ceremony) took place on a lake in front of the lit mountains. Local farmers used their bamboo rafts to perform to the music and songs of the local minorities. All of this action and music was light magically to create and fantastic scene. As you can tell we really enjoyed it, we even bought the DVD!