Guilin & the Li River 3D2N

Most Guilin programmes put the river into one four-hour cruise and give the rest of the time to Yangshuo's shops. This one walks the old bank from Laocuntou to Lengshui village, takes a quiet electric raft through the Xingping–Mashan stretch the 20-yuan note was painted from, and sleeps in Xingping instead of driving back to the city. Day three is the countryside side of the same landscape — the Yulong River by e-bike, and the Li River's great bend from the top of Xianggong Mountain.

Day by day

1. 1

   Day 1 — Arrive Guilin: Elephant Trunk Hill and the four lakes

   Met on arrival and into the city · Elephant Trunk Hill, the city emblem, where the trunk and its reflection close into a full moon — the cave Xu Xiake rated the finest on the Li River · The Puxian pagoda on the summit, Tibetan form on a Han hill · Optionally a fifteen-minute bamboo raft for the close view of Water Moon Cave · After dark, the Four Lakes cruise through eighteen bridges on the Tang and Song moat, past the Sun and Moon pagodas — at 42 m and 350 tonnes of cast copper, the taller of the two is the tallest copper tower in the world.

2. 2

   Day 2 — Li River: the bank on foot, then the raft to Mashan

   Walk the old riverbank from Laocuntou to Lengshui village, the stretch Xu Xiake covered — field paths, an old ferry crossing and the Qinglong spring, with Nine Horses Painting Mountain on the far bank · The villagers are descendants of Hunan settlers and will tell you the story · Afternoon on a near-silent electric bamboo raft from Xingping down to Mashan, through the Yellow Cloth reflection on the back of the 20-yuan note and past Xingping fishing village · Out again at dusk for the cormorant rafts on the water · Night in Xingping.

3. 3

   Day 3 — Yulong River by bike, Xianggong Mountain, then the station

   E-bike the Ten-Mile Gallery through the rice and the phoenix-tail bamboo to the thousand-year banyan of the Liu Sanjie song fair · Field lanes to Shuierdi pier, running alongside the Yulong raft line · Fifteen minutes up Xianggong Mountain for the 360° platform over the river's great bend, at its best while the mist is still in the peaks · A set of China Post's 2022 “Guilin Karst” stamps for each family · Transfer to Guilin West station, about an hour and a half.

Accommodation

We quote a hotel ladder rather than a fixed list, so the same itinerary can be sold at more than one price point.

On the ground

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