Trip to the Pandas
Near Guilin we got a close-up view of Yin-Yin and Yang-Yang. These pandas eat mostly bamboo leaves. Their diet is supplemented with some vegetables like carrots.
They have a really interesting face which makes them look like a toy. However, you must be careful as they have big claws and teeth and have been know to attack people if they are upset.
Guilin and the Li River
Guilin is a beautiful town deep within the southern limestone mountains. These are the mountains that appear in many of the classical Chinese brushpaintings. While a tourist mecca, Guilin has kept its charm and the large number of visitors does not seem to upset ambiance of the area.
This is one of the beautiful parks in Guilin. The haze give a little atmosphere to this picture. However, the haze was from the burning off of rice stocks and it gave an atmosphere that you did not want to breathe.
The Li River is a main tourist attraction of the Guilin area. During our visit the river was suffering from a long term drought. The boats could not pass each other as the channel had become extremely narrow, so we moved down stream in a row like ducklings following mom.
Here is another view down the Li River. Here you can see that the riverbed is very shallow, so that when there is not sufficient water the channel becomes very narrow.