River Li and YangshouAug 22, 2008
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The scenery along the River Li
The show at Yangshuo
Next morning we were set for our cruise down the River Li. We were fortunate to be in on a table with a great couple of guys, David and Jason. They were originally from the US but after a stop in Geneva were living in Carnaby Street in London.
The River Li is a river version of Halong Bay in Vietnam with impressive Limestone cliffs and steep hills jutting from the ground.
It was very relaxing with great views plus we had a great laugh with the guys. We cottoned on quite quickly that when one of the staff offered us a local drink or delicacy, such as snake wine (with a snake in the bottle) or deep fried lizard, it was not for free.
Yangshuo was a vibrant town with many small shops and bars. We had a walk around and an ice cream before a thunder storm sent us back to the room to watch the Olympics.
In the evening our guide had almost insisted that we to go the Liu Sanjie show and we would be one of the greatest shows would ever see. We were certainly not disappointed. The total number of people seeing the show ran into the thousands, and there were two sold out shows that night! When we sat down we could not fully see what awaited for us but we were blown away by what we saw when the lights went up.
It is difficult to describe to someone who hasn’t been to the show. The ‘stage is actually a lake with the limestone hills jutting out in the background which were all colourfully lit. The cast numbered 500 and the set on both land and water was beautifully lit with vibrant colours. The story was simple: a maiden went to marry an old emperor but then refused and subsequently returned to marry a fisherman. This helped so we didn’t need translating. The final scene with a line of 100+ dancers with individual lighted costumes snaking across the lake on pontoons was truly amazing.
We were lucky to meet up with David and Jason amongst the thousands watching the show, and we headed back together to Yangshuo. There we found a very loud Perudo bar which we watched the Women’s Olympic Hockey final over a few beers.
