Lolling on the Li

Another rafting experience, but this time on slightly bigger, motor-powered rafts, and on the much bigger Li River which eventually empties out into the South China Sea near Hong Kong. The karst hills here are amazing, rising almost vertically, covered in trees and bushes. The whole landscape looks quite unreal. 
After an hour and a half upriver and half an hour back down again, we wandered the streets of Xingping, a small, dusty one-street (OK, two) town from which the boats depart - and it's from here that one can see the panorama depicted on the back of the 20RMB note. Today it's the 1st of October, National Day, so there were firecrackers, the occasional wedding party and a fair few people around but somehow it still projected an aura of sleepiness with old men playing cards behind crumbling doorways and dogs flaked out in the midday sun.