September 29 (Tuesday) – Li River/Yangshou

The Li River Cruise to Yangshou is today. We are seated (for lunch) with a Buddhist Monk, a nun (I think) and three elderly ladies. There is a large contingent of Monks and Nuns on the cruise. Turns out they are from Thailand. We spent most of the time topside to enjoy the scenery. It is truly impressive.

   Video in a new window, Li River

We saw water buffalo, lots of ducks, men on rafts, ferries moving people across the river and many tour boats, both large cruising boats and six person rafts and hundreds of the hills/mountains for which the area is famous. It was a fairly leisurely, restful and beautiful cruise.







































Also on the cruise were the six brothers from Canada (and their wives and father) that we met a few days before in Huang Shan. Their next stop is their father’s home village near Canton.

Paul is still at half speed with his cold and I can tell I’m getting it as well (he does like to share). Instead of going sight seeing after the cruise we both crashed at the hotel for a nap. The bed was the largest I’d ever seen. It was much wider than a normal king size bed…must have been ten feet across.

After dinner we went to the Sanjie Liu Show at a large park. The park has a theater that is boasted to be the largest in the world. The theater seats 3000 overlooking a huge “stage” that includes a lake and seven surrounding hills as part of the settings. The stage is used for a single show that was designed specifically for the setting. The cast has 600 people, mostly locals, including about 100 raftsmen. The most visually impressive scene was when the raftsmen, in 15 lines, pulled up from the lake long red wide ribbons that spanned the lake. The ribbons were maybe 5 or 6 feet wide and the rafts men made the ribbons do waves and otherwise undulate in a very impressive display.

The second scene I liked best involved about 200 people dressed in local ethnic group costumes. The costumes were fitted with lights from head to toe. The cast walked slowly along a gangway that zigzagged across the lake. They did some routines by flashing the lights off and on using the gangway lights to get different color effects and they also broke into groups to move around for other effects.

All of it was visually beautiful even if we couldn’t understand the story. Unfortunately none of the pictures turned out – too dark.

Li River and Yangshou Album