Guilen to Yangshuo, China

Monday, March 24, 2019      Guilin, China

Today started with an 8:30 am Tia Chi Class with Master Lucille. The Master, having ten years of experience, led us through a lesson of 3 of the 24 basic steps. After practicing with Master Kim on the Westerdam, I felt very comfortable with the moves. It was an enjoyable experience.

We had breakfast and then packed up to leave at noon heading out of the National Park and into the city of Guilin.

                                                          Good bye to the Outside Inn

Yangshuo is a nice resort,..outside of the National Park.

After checking into a new hotel and a little western lunch, we headed out for a Bamboo Raft Ride down the Li River. 

What scenery! 

 Awesome limestone mountains jetted straight up into the atmosphere creating some lovely views.

  We rode a little trolley bus to the riverfront and quickly boarded a boat that took us an hour down the river and back. 

There were numerous other boats with four tourists on board charging down the river with an engine that sounded like a lawn mower running. 

Upon arriving back we enjoyed seeing the fish catching, diving ducks. Willie posed for a  picture  with the birds. 

We took the little trolley bus to a ferry boat, that took us across the river to an island.

Here we met a local woman called Tomato in the village of Da He Bei. She led us on a mile walk through the countryside neighborhood of gardens and orchards to her restaurant. 

                                                            

With the support of G Adventures Travel Company (who hires Howard, our guide), Tomato had opened a little restaurant that gave the local women a place to come to learn a skill as well as a job preparing fresh foods for visitors. 

                                                            Tomato and her husband

                                                               We had a lovely flower tea.

 Then we were served rice, sweet potatoes, white potatoes, bacchoy, cabbage, spicy beef and vegetables, pork and lotus, chicken and bamboo, and chicken and celery.

 It was very tasty. She took us on a tour of the women’s meeting room upstairs…we took our shoes off to enter. She was so proud to have this business and to be helping local women to have the opportunity to work outside of their home.

                                                                   Tomato's relative

                                        Chickens and a pheasant were in the back yard

After a heartwarming good bye we loaded into our mini bus and headed back to the city for the evening. Larry and I headed up to our extra comfy room to get some sleep…we had a 6:00am wake up call in the morning to catch a plane to Shanghai….and so our marvelous adventure continues.