Overview
The scenery around Guilin, with its clustered towers of grey limestone worn into fantastic shapes, has been painted and praised in China for centuries and appears on the twenty-yuan note. The city itself is a pleasant base on the Li River, but the draw is the countryside downstream toward Yangshuo, where the peaks crowd the water and the rice fields. It is warm and often misty, and the karst is best seen slowly, by boat, bike or raft.
Highlights
The Li River cruise from Guilin to Yangshuo drifts for hours past the most famous of the peaks, mirrored in the water. Around Yangshuo, bikes and bamboo rafts reach villages and the Yulong River, and the Longji rice terraces climb the hills a couple of hours north. In the city, Elephant Trunk Hill and the Reed Flute Cave give quick tastes of the same limestone country.