The Mighty Li River

Keith P. Tomlinson

The Virginia Sportsman Exploration Column, February/March 2008

Our China Air 727 climbed above the smog of Wuhan, among the worlds most polluted cities. I had just finished a presentation at the 3rd. Global Botanic Garden Congress and visiting Wuhan’s exquisite botanical garden. Over a thousand delegates from more than sixty countries had gather to discuss conserving global plant diversity in gardens and in the wild. China is considered mega-diverse when it comes to plants. It was only appropriate to have this gathering in a place with so many plants under so much pressure.

In just over an hour our plane banked hard toward the runway at Guilin. A small city by Chinese standards set among some of the most scenic landscape on Earth. As far as the eye could see limestone pillars of every dimension shoot skyward. Some entirely clothed in a lush subtropical flora, others Yosemite-like in their display of vertical rock, etched by clean dihedrals’. In the distance the Li River meanders away snaking between the centaury-like pillars guarding its inky blue-green waters. I was thrilled to be on the ground and done with the Congress. Talked out, now it was time to explore this remarkable place.

Many of us don’t realize we have seen images of Guilin’s dreamscape for years. Most often as tacky art work in a local Chinese restaurant…the image of an impossibly steep mountain with the sole pagoda and wind-dwarfed pine at the summit. Indeed, this is Guilin in all its glory.

The city is a major tourist attraction for citizens of growing economies in East Asia. Koreans, Thais, Japanese and of course many Chinese tour the streets with a zeal one might expect in Paris. The City itself is accommodating and easy to walk around…a pedestrian mall is inviting but not too western. A quick turn down a side ally and a trace of old China may be found, boiling woks full of ducks, frogs and many different fish tempt a culinary adventure. I had a duck with remarkably little meat and a lot of fat. Most of the internal organs remained, codified by searing old. While chewing on one particularly elastic piece, I noted its funnel-like shape and perfectly seemed walls. Suddenly, I was transported back to an Ornithology class twenty 20 years hence. With muted curiosity I realized I was eating the bird’s cloacae, the combined avian reproductive and excretory organ. A hard swallow and it was gone. I gave the rest to a local cat.

Most people venture to Guilin see the Li River, and its worth every step of the way. I met my boat the next morning. Arriving at the dock it was immediately apparent we weren’t the only tour that day. If fact there were five other boats of similar size, hosting about one hundred passengers each. Some were clearly in disrepair listing just slightly. My boat seemed on the higher end, complete with an interior floor and observation deck above. Without delay I was on the upper deck taking in the stunning scenery. On this perfect April day the Li ran at an ideally level and speed for the boats. Broad gravel bars, sinuous and long bare testament to seasonal floods.

The urbanity of Guilin faded rapidly as we progressed with the other boats, evenly spaced by a half mile or so. The rivers canyon deepens in places ever directed by the towering limestone pillars. Some falling directly into the water while others formed a pleasant apron of vegetation, often supporting a small riparian farm. At a few locations water buffalo swam lazily against light current. My memory took me back to rural northern Thailand twenty years earlier and only about 500 miles away. Then as now, water buffalo seems the agrarian sentinel of south-east Asia. Part draft animal, part pet, this noble bovine has been domesticated for millennia. Its work is never done as a part of human agricultural endeavor.

A few miles before disembarking at Yangshuo, a local fisherman is seen in the distance. There no mistaking him, he is endemic to the Li. His boat is barely more that surfboard of bamboo, on each end sets a cormorant. These primitive fish eating birds are trained and leashed to harvest fish. In the center of the boat a modest woven basket carries the mornings catch. The fisherman appears satisfied, the cormorant’s look longingly at rivers expanse, surely wishing to escape. It is however, a remarkable sight to see bit of human-bird enterprise, perhaps a fleeting glimpse of the once remote Hermit Kingdom.

The true travelers bible, Lonely Plant Guide Books, calls Yangshuo the back packers’ paradise of south China. As we descend the walkway to an ancient stone wharf a tourist scrum of considerable proportion takes shape. Everything is for sale, beer, watches, local art, food, rooms and escort services. I make my way to the main street embedded in a crowd of hawkers and fellow boaters. A small saloon beckons. I have light lunch and indulge in the local liquor poured from bottle full of fermenting snakes. Sipping slowly, I spy the Li flowing in the background while intense bartering and banter fills the air. For a moment the great limestone pillars take a back seat to the human cacophony and the Li meanders on, seaward.