29 October: During breakfast we met a couple from England, Tony and Trish, who had arrived the night before. After telling them about our adventures and our guide, they were anxious to meet Juan and hire her for their time in Yangshuo. I invited them to join us, but they weren’t quite ready to head out for the day.
Our last day in Yangshuo was spent on the Li River. We took a motorized boat up the river for 2 hours. We should have started at Yangdi town and worked our way south, not XingPing where the boat worked its way against the flow of the river. The scenery was incredible even though it was an overcast day. We spent a little time in XingPing before the ride walking along the oldest street in town. We visited an old man’s house where he entertained us with a song. He’s a musical teacher as well as an artist. We purchased paintings that he drew; typical Yangshuo scenes for 15 RMB each.
On the river we passed a few large boats that had come from Guilin. All the tourists were up top taking photos of the scenery.
After our 2-hour ride, we took the bus back to Yangshuo and spent some time window-shopping. It sort of made me feel I wish we had stayed at a hotel in town rather than the Retreat. We could have had more time in town. As it was, we spent little time at the Retreat, which I had planned on some downtime to relax and write in my journal. We were on the go every day!
We had dinner at Café China. I had a beef curry dish and Reenie had a pork and tofu dish. We had a couple of drinks, which brought the total to 154RMB. Ran into Tony and Trish, who were waiting to go to the Liu Sanjie light and sound show. Juan made arrangements for a taxi to take us there and back to the hotel after the show. She ordered our tickets the night before. The performance lasted about an hour and consisted of about 500 performers on bamboo boats. Young girls sang while dressed in local costume. Even an ox came out on stage with his handler! The same man who did the opening ceremonies for the Olympics created the show. It was pretty impressive.
Back at our hotel, we packed our suitcases for our last leg of the trip – Hong Kong.
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