Guilin, Dali, and Beijing

It was very exciting for me to have my daughters, Anne and Sarah, come to Xi'an to see where I had been living since February. At the end of July, we flew to Guilin, Guangxi Province, in the south of China where it is very hot and humid, very tropical. We spent a morning in Guilin before our boat trip on the Li River. It is there that one sees all the karst or limestone hills covered with green vegetation jutting up from the otherwise flat terrain. We were on a bamboo motor-driven raft going down the river for several hours, the views were dramatic We ended up in Yangshuo, a very touristy town, but very nice.

We rented bikes and rode out in the countryside on small rural roads with more of the odd-shaped hills as a background for the wet rice fields. The farmers were planting rice and harvesting wheat. We watched oxen plowing the muddy fields and people walking in knee-deep water to transplant the rice into the fields. We biked to several villages and then to Moon Mountain, a limestone mountain with a big full moon cut out near the top. We climbed the hill and had a splendid view of the countryside. Then back to town on more small winding country roads. We returned to Guilin to go on to Kunming and Dali.

Dali

From Kunming, we continued on to Dali, a town in the mountains of Yunnan Province, and with a huge lake, Er Hai, nearby. In the surrounding area and also in the town there are many people of the Bai ethnic group. The Miao (Hmong) live further away, up high in the mountains. Houses of the Bai are primarily two stories with courtyards, white with black designs and small pictures painted on them, and grey roofs. Many of the Bai wear colorful native dress. We visited a local market in a small village, Shaping, where people from the countryside come with their products to sell. We were most impressed with large beautiful deep purple eggplant. We also visited a small tie-dye factory in the village of Zhoucheng. We saw how they tied the strings to make patterned tablecloths. There were other interesting dyed clothes drying on lines in the courtyard.

In Dali we walked on the city wall and went up in two pagodas - one was part of the south city gate, to get an overview of the town and to see all the tourists walking on the streets. The mountains with some cloud cover were lovely as the sun was setting and an almost full moon was appearing.

From Dali we flew back to Kunming and this time visited the Qiongshu Si, a temple in the hills above the city. The setting among bamboo was lovely and in one of the temple buildings was a large array of strange looking statues of deities.

We had a late flight to Beijing and when we checked in at the hostel, my friend, Paula Hirschoff from DC, was there to greet us. For two and a half days we went around Beijing, smoggy, rainy, hot and humid. Anne and Sarah got to see the main sights of Beijing, Tian'anmen Square, the Summer Palace, with a lake, temples, pavilions, beautiful gardens, a long covered walkway or gallery along part of the lake with painted scenes in the ceiling, and the marble boat in the water. It was splendid. They also went to the Imperial Palace, or the Forbidden City. Those places were crowded with Chinese tourists.

The highlight, however, was our 10-kilometer walk on the Great Wall from Jinshanling to Simatau, about 3 hours northeast of Beijing, where there were few people. Two of Sarah's friends who were traveling in China, joined us. It took us about 4 hours to walk up and down the stairs of the wall, which were crumbling in some places. It was amazing, winding up and down on the tops of the green hills, but for the haze, it was just like the pictures. We passed through 30 watch towers and marveled at how the workers could have built it, getting the bricks up to the tops of the mountains and working under the hot sun. It had been reconstructed under the Ming Dynasty, 1368 - 1644. It was an exhausting day, but definitely worth the effort. The young ones were very patient with Paula and me since we needed to rest often on the steep stairs as we climbed up and down. It was definitely a great experience, well worth the effort.

Paula and I spent another day in the rain in Beijing and went to an art museum and saw old Chinese paintings, and then to the 798 Art District and saw several galleries with very modern paintings. Then to Mongolia where we are now, and where I am able to access my blog. The sky is blue and the sun is bright.