From 12th position last week, she went up 4 steps to 8th position putting her in the Top 10. Thank you all! If you are a fan of Mariah, please do not stop voting. Let's get her to No.1, shall we?
OK, coming back to my China trip, instead of continuing from where I left off in my last China post, I have decided to fast forward to my 5th day in China. That was the day when I, Jam and his friend went for the fantastic cruise on the famous Li River!
See this picture?
This is the photo I took while on board the tour boat.
Going on this cruise had to be one of my most memorable experiences of my 10 days in China. The stunning scenery along the Li River is reminiscent of those old Chinese paintings of river and mountain landscapes. If you happen to visit Guilin, you must not miss this cruise!
Do you recall that I sat on that flimsy looking raft on the Li River to visit The Elephant Trunk Hill? Most of you commented that the raft looked like it could sink at any time. Haha! Well, this time, we were not on that type of raft, but on a big boat. In fact, the boat had 2 levels and was fully air conditioned with open decks on the top level for observing the scenery.
This is how the boats looked like.
We left our hostel in Guilin early in the morning on a tour bus which took us to the Mo Pang Pier. We were asked if we wanted to sit at the top deck which would cost an additional 20 yuan per person, although the seats were limited. Since we thought that being on the top deck would be easier to capture all the beautiful sceneries, we decided to go for it.
It took some time before we could board our tour boat. I could not help feeling that the tour was a little disorganised as we were kept waiting and no one informed us if we managed to get the seats at the top deck. Besides, the three of us lost sight of the group of tourists from the same bus as ours so that at one point we were actually wondering if they had all boarded the boat without us!
In the end however, our tour guide came to us and gave us the tickets and asked us to board the boat. I thought we were supposed to go in a group and she was supposed to lead the way! Well, no one led us to our boat and we had to find the way ourselves! Can you imagine that?
Fortunately, we managed to find our way. This is the Mo Pang Pier where many boats were docking.
There were many stalls along the walkway selling fruits and tidbits.
We boarded the boat and went up the stairs to the top deck.
I forgot to take photos of the interior! Oh well, never mind. The interior was nothing much to shout about. Our seats were right at the back (which was actually the front of the boat) and it was just nice since we were nearest to the door and therefore, we would be the first to go out to the open front deck! Talking about kiasuness. Haha!
The cruise was expected to last about 4 hours as we were to travel about 83 km along the Li River until we reach Yangshuo. There would be no boat returning from Yangshuo so the only alternative is to take a 90-minute journey on a bus or any land transportation back to Guilin.
Anyway, we had no plans to return so soon to Guilin as we had wanted to visit all the famous tourist spots in Yangshuo and spend two nights there. I will talk more about Yangshuo in my future posts.
The boat was supposed to depart at 10am and we were supposed to reach Yangshuo at 2pm to meet back up again with our tour guide who would bring us to the famous tourist spots in Yangshuo.
But it was already 15 minutes past 10am, and droves of people were still getting up the boat!
It was only at 10.30am that our boat was ready to leave. We were half an hour behind time! But I was not really bothered as I was too excited anticipating what was coming up ahead.
Leaving the pier, I saw many other boats behind and in front of us.
I like this boat! Don't you think it looked nice?
Oh, here's another similar one passing us by!
Of course, not all were big boats! There were small ones too like this one.
And even smaller ones like those rafts that I sat on when I visited Elephant Trunk Hill! I wouldn't dream of sitting on those rafts here as I did not want to be mowed down by the bigger boats! Haha!
Although we could see the scenery from inside the boat, I had to leave the comforts of the air conditioning and go out to the open deck to take pictures.
This is the open deck area where many people would gather to take pictures of the beautiful scenery all around them. At this moment, most were still inside their air conditioned boat so not many were outside.
Oh, I accidentally took a photo of this lady and she smiled at me!
Can you see the hills formation in the background? There were many of such limestone karst hills all along Li River and many of them have unique structures. And guess what? Every formation has a name to it!
Names like Yearning For Husband Rock, Writing Brush Peak, River Snail Hill, Five Fingers Hill and so on. I guess part of the fun was in identifying all these formation with their unique names!
Is it any wonder that most people would go out onto the open deck and jostle with one another to take photos of these beautiful hill formations?
Well, me and Jam decided to stand rooted at one spot so that no one could have the slightest chance of taking over our places. I am sorry but kiasuness definitely ruled that day! Haha!
Now if you want to see some pretty nice scenery along Li River, don't miss my next post coming right up!
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