April 20,2026

The city of Guilin is a bustling metropolis of some 4 million people to the south of Shanghai surrounded by spiked mountains and laced with winding rivers and lakes. For decades we have dreamed of visiting this Chinese scroll painted landscape and finally getting here, it didn’t disappoint.  We boated 4 hours down the Li River basking in the magical, mystical, ever changing vistas composed of limestone karst. They didn’t photograph quite as well as they look to the eye because it was an overcast day but believe me, it was stunning nonetheless.

We next spent a day in the life of a remote Dong Village. The Dong people are one of the five protected ethnic groups in China living in an Autonomous Region. They have mortise and tenon building traditions, unique food, language, mating rituals and genetics. Of all the Chinese, their ethnicity is centered most around music and drumming. We found the village folks to be gracious and welcoming.  They sang, played homemade stringed and bamboo flute instruments, shared stories and made us an amazing banquet of 30 different homemade dishes, just for lunch! Traditionally here, one circles the table sampling from each dish into your bowl before sitting down to eat.

Next we visited a tea research center and learned many things we never knew about this most essential of Chinese beverages.  Most importantly: all tea comes from different parts of the same bush!  When and from what part of the plant it is picked and how it is treated makes it Green, White, Oolong, etc. The tea master started us all out in the fields picking the delicate top bud and leaf pairs to gain appreciation of the growing and processing required.

We went to a local wet market, which was startling in the varied dead and dying animals and their parts.  Also, smoked meats, sausages and lots of interesting dried mushrooms, other veg and noodle products.  We escaped there and went to find a barber shop for the adventure of Bob’s foreign hair cut experience, 15 yuan ~ $2 USD. It always amuses me. He will look like himself in just a few days when the buzz cut starts to grow out.

Our last evening here we had yet another banquet and then wandered around the lake next to our posh hotel/conference center on our own, amid thousands of local folks celebrating the annual Singing Festival. We listened to music, people watched, and did a bit of sightseeing of the Sun and Moon Pagodas, all lit up at night and festooned by hanging lanterns along the river side path. This is the season here of mist, fog and rain and we count ourselves lucky as we fly out to Chengdu today because the next two days in Guilin is forecast to receive 8 inches of rain.