The ride to the pier would be about 45 minutes. The cruise itself would be another three to four hours. Our tour guide, another young Chinese guy, introduced himself as Yang Yang, which apparently means goat-goat, and he talked about being teased at school. He spoke English well-enough but had a fairly heavy accent, and he talked too fast, which meant that it was sometimes difficult to process what he was saying. While he was funny, his comments tended to be a little more sardonic than the other tour guides we’d had, which told me that perhaps his tour groups hadn’t always gone so smoothly.
After the usual patter, Yang told us we’d be seeing many karst limetone mountains that had been named for their shapes. Four of the sites were the most famous, and we would be passing two of them during lunch.
“So when I say GET UP, you must get up NOW and go upstairs and take pictures,” he said. Then he shooed us all up to the top deck.
The Li River cruise has always gotten great reviews online and in the guide books. The weather, however, was not cooperating, and a light drizzle was in the air, while the mist obscured part of the view. I suspect I was suffering from comparison fatigue…as nice as the Li River landscape was, it just couldn’t compare to Tiger Leaping Gorge.
The boat was slow, and the mountains drifted by. I introduced myself to several travelers and we struck up conversations in-between pictures. There was a family from Australia onboard with two daughters, Zoe and Gemma, one a little older than Kinsey and one a little younger. I hoped they would strike up a friendship, but kids this age are slow to pick up new friends. There were older travelers and younger travelers, Europeans and Americans. A nice even mix, although half the boat was still Chinese tourists. The landscape unfurled peacefully and seemed to have a calming effect on the passengers. The Chinese seemed decidedly low-key about having their pictures taken, and the boat was balanced evenly enough that everyone had their own space at the railing.
Yang was making the rounds and stopped to ask me if I wanted tickets to the Impressions Liu Sanjie show that night. He had a couple of tickets left for 188 yuan apiece. The show was outdoors on the Li River and had been directed by the Zhang Yimou, the man who put together the Opening Ceremony for the Olympics. I had heard nice things about it, and it was on my agenda, so I said I’d take the tickets. He took my money and gave me a handwritten slip as a receipt, telling me that someone would come pick us up from our hostel at 6:40 pm.
Eventually it was time for lunch, and we all trooped down to our designated seats. The menu was strictly Chinese, although if you preferred, you could have vegetarian. I have been a little dubious about the cleanliness of Chinese cooking, but have not gotten sick over anything yet. Lunch had been cooked at the back of the boat, a place that did not look like it would pass any health inspections in America. I chose not to look at it too carefully and just take my chances. I had to…I was starving. The dishes were a bit rustic, typical Chinese, and plentiful. It was, however, great fun to have a Chinese meal with a group of people. One of the bad things about traveling in a group of two in China is the loneliness at meals. For the Chinese, a meal is something to be shared with a table full of six or eight people. Watching all those boisterous groups was like eavesdropping on a lot of dinner parties when you’re sitting in the kitchen by yourself. So it was nice to have that veritable Chinese banquet with a group. We all chatted and made small talk until Yang cheerfully announced that we were at the Nine Horses and must all go up NOW!
Half of our table left, and the other half stayed to eat. The rain was coming down a bit harder, so the ones who’d gone up to the top deck, came back fairly quickly. Five or ten minutes later, Yang announced that we were at the next important site. By this time, lunch was pretty much over, so we all cleared out. The rain was back to a light drizzle, and the majority of the cruise was over. Yang weaved his way throughout our group, handing out little hand-drawn maps, showing where we needed to go to pick up our luggage, meet for another tour, or meet for the show. I couldn’t believe he’d hand-drawn 20 or 30 maps. Kinsey and I had clear directions on how to get from the dock to a hotel several blocks away to pick up our luggage.
The boat docked, and we got off into a crush of tourist shops on West Street. The touts were out, but everyone rushed by because no one wanted to shop in the rain and had other places to go. Kinsey and I followed our map, but after we turned off West Street and started walking, it seemed like a lot farther than the map indicated. I kept asking shopkeepers where the hotel was, and they kept waving me down the street, so I figured we were going in the right direction. After a 10-minute walk, we found the hotel, a mid-priced place that catered to Chinese. We picked up our bags, and I went into the lobby to see if I could borrow their phone. Our hostel owner, Mr. Wei, had left explicit instructions that we should call and he would pick us up. Also, due to the many disreputable touts who might try to pass themselves off as his representative, we should look only for Mr. Wei, whom we would recognize because he only had four-and-a-half fingers on his right hand.
It took awhile to ask for a phone and get some help dialing--I couldn’t figure out how to dial out from the hotel phone. Was it customary to dial 9 first in hotels around the world? Eventually I got in touch with Mr. Wei, who had excellent English with surprisingly little accent. He said he’d be by in about 10 minutes.
We waited on the outside front steps under the eaves, and I surreptitiously surveyed all the men who drove up and came in. How many fingers did they have?
Eventually, Mr. Wei showed up and thrust out his hand to shake mine, a kind of low-key sign of identification. We introduced ourselves, pushed our luggage into the back of the van, and were off to the Yangshuo Culture House.
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