September 28 (Monday) – Guilin

Today starts our visit to Guilin…long anticipated. First stop was the Seven Star Park. The park has seven small mountains/hills that are laid out approximately like the seven stars in the Big Dipper. It’s a very pretty park; we didn’t climb any of the hills…the sides go almost straight up.

Next was Folded Brocade Hill. Paul got through the first 50 or so stairs and decided not to go any further (he picked up a cold after we left Huang Shan). I made it all the way to the top (514) stairs). The altitude is a lot lower here so it was a lot easier than in Huang Shan. The top gave me a 360° view of Guilin. It was obvious it is a beautiful city with lots of Karst limestone hills in and around the city.













After dinner we took Paul to the hotel and Edith, our guide, took me to see Elephant Trunk Hill – a limestone hill with a large natural hole on one end of it that goes all the way through. The hill looks vaguely like an elephant.

We then went to see the cormorant fishing show. Two fishermen on bamboo rafts poled along beside our boat while their cormorants fished. The cormorants are tethered to the raft by long strings and a piece of string is tied around their neck so they can’t swallow the fish they catch. The fisherman removes any fish into a basket on the back of the raft. This type of fishing is done at night with a propane lantern on the end of the boat. The light attracts the fish. During our trip the cormorants caught seven or eight fish and everyone oohed and aahed accordingly.









Guilin Album