June 2016
Guilin, Guangxi Province.
Another must see area of China. Amazing 800 year old rice terraces, stunning Karst landscapes, ancient towns, roaring rivers and ethnic minorities justly proud of their heritage.Guilin is the principle city of Guangxi province, 700 kilometers north east of Shenzhen. From here we explored the "Dragon's Backbone Rice Terraces" near Longshen, the Ancient river port town of Xingping, the river Li and the popular town of Yangshuo. Being the wet season, we should have expected rain, however there was so much precipitation our planned walk and boat trip was washed out. Our change of plans did not dampen our enjoyment of the stunning scenery around this area.
To do it justice we have had to use 'full size' photos for many of the images. Apologies if the downloads are a little slow.
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| Start of our hike from Ping'An to Dazhai through the these wonderful, ancient rice terraces. |
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| Being spring the fields are filled with water in preparation for planting. |
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| Preparing the fields for the rice seedlings. |
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| Mountainside after mountainside covered in terraces. |
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| Planting the rice seedlings - back breaking work. |
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| Traditional Zhuang farmer - a tradition of working these terraces for centuries. |
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| Tiantou village in the heart of the Longi Rice terraces. |
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| The scenery was just breathtaking - as was the hiking at over 900 meters high. |
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| Obviously Michael did not have eggs for breakfast!! |
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| The 'delightful' Sun and Moon Pagoda in Guilin. |
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| View from our hotel in Xingping. |
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| 21/2 kilometer hike to a hotel in the rice fields - mostly it was the local women who carried the tourists bags!! |
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| Our interesting bus trip to Yangshuo - note the road!!!! |
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| Our car trip (the ferry was cancelled) from Xingping. |
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| We had to drive on the footpath to leave Xingping- it was a lovely day for ducks until we came along!! |
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| Guilin to Yangshuo - 60 kilometers of interesting road! |
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| Our amazing vehicle that extracted us from the flooding Li River. This tiny van and skilful driver took 5 adults through terrain that I wouldn't have gone near in our 4WD Landcruiser!! |
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| The Ancient River Port town of Xingping. |
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| The Li River and typical atmospheric Karst mountains. Even the usual busy tourist boats were not allowed to 'sail'. Note the 'Footpath' on the left we drove along! |
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| View from our hotel in Xingping. |
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| Off to catch the ferry to the other side of the river? Wrong - the river was so wild even the local transport was cautioned not to 'sail'. |
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| The weather seemed to be clearing - a chance to escape! |
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| How lucky were we - this was the scene we encountered once we had driven up from Dahebei village where were staying because the ferry crossing was delayed |
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| This is the scene we left. |
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| Look familiar?? 20/20 vision for this scene. |
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| Stunning Karst scenery from "Moon Hill" in Yangshuo. |
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| Saturday night in Yangshuo - a popular tourist destination, whatever the weather! |
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| Amazing who you bump into!!! |
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| Yangshuo's main street - Sunday morning. |
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| Looking north from Laozhai hill, Yangshuo. |
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| Multi-tasking hairdresser in Fuli - note the sleeping baby. |
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| Moon Hill |
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| At last blue sky. |
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| Taking ones water buffalo for a walk! |
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| As the sun goes down, 'karsting shadows". |
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| Sunset over the Li River near Yangshuo. |
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| On our way home, view from the train window. |
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| Gratuitous photo opportunity. |
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| Further south the rice is ripening beautifully. |
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| Back home in Shenzhen - another of Hanneke's hiking highpoint photos. |
