China Tours - Guilin, China
Guilin is celebrated for its picturesque limestone mountains and the meandering Li River.
An ancient Chinese saying describes the landscape in Guilin as the best scenery under heaven.
Its misty peaks rise as suddenly from the earth as trees in a forest, they surround the city like mountains floating in an imaginary sea.
With China Spree you are never far from the action, so your beautiful hotel is located in the heart of the city on a riverside avenue of the sweet-scented trees and walkway that overlooks the Li River. It's a great place for relaxation and meditation.
This part of the country encompasses China's most famous scenic landscapes.
While in Guilin we travel to Long Sheng for an off-the-beaten-path hiking tour of the spectacular Dragon Spine Rice Terraces.
Over the centuries, the drong and Yao minorities have sculpted 2,000 foot high peaks with remarkable step-like terraces. They use the terraces for growing rice. This transformation over time has created landscapes of utility as well as immense beauty.
In Spring, when the terraces are full of water, they resemble irregular silver ladders; and in autumn, when the rice ripens, the mountains turn into golden waves.
Visit the unique culture of local minorities and their villages where life has remained unchanged for thousands of years. We are able to hike between the villages following tiny stone paths carved out by the local people. This memorable journey is rarely included in the conventional itinerary.
A beautiful day waits! After breakfast, you take a scenic ride through the countryside, passing lush green fields and rice paddies, to reach the Bamboo River pier, where you embark on a memorable cruise down the picturesque Li River. The 40-mile trip has countless twists and turns and the scenery is reminiscent of classical Chinese landscapes—bamboo groves, sleepy villages, fishermen on bamboo rafts, cormorants, water buffalo, soaring karst pinnacles and mist shrouded peaks... your cruise concludes at Yangshuo, a rural town, amidst a haunting and surreal setting.
Time permitting you will have free time to explore this fascinating town on your own, followed by a tour on tuk-tuk to visit local farmers' fields and homes. Yangshuo's landscape of limestone hills, rice fields and lazy rivers is the very image of rural China, and ride on a tuk-tuk through this much-painted landscape provides a great way to experience the dramatic countryside, ancient villages and bustling local markets in a very intimate way.
Traveling back to Guilin in the late afternoon, en route, we will make photo stop to shoot signature sceneries of the countryside
If time permits, you will tour the Reed Flute Cave, nature's subterranean wonder filled with stalactites and stalagmites. Its name comes from the verdant reeds growing outside that are used to make flutes. The grand chamber known as the Crystal Palace, is an awesome spectacle.