For anyone who has been to the Guilin area a cruise on the Li River is an obligatory part of the visit. Thankfully it’s an experience that actually lives up to the hype. The scenery is like one of those Chinese paintings, all contorted mountains, sculptural rocks and bamboo growing along the river banks, with fishermen on their bamboo rafts, except it’s actually there before you. The only slight ammendment I would note is that most of the bamboo rafts have now been replaced by rafts of exactly the same design made out of pvc pipes with the ends capped. I am still trying to work out how they get them to bend at either end, with heat I presume.
I was lucky enough to have taken this boat cruise before so I was able to focus on my drawing (and take a few pictures). I managed 12 pages of sketches before I gave up. Here is a selection.

On most pages I’ve tried to fit in more than one drawing. The two objects in the upper right drawing are just two of the flotilla of cruise boats making the trip.

I spent some time after we got back to the hotel adding some watercolour to some of the drawings. Here is one of the successful ones, others were not so successful.