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Our next stop was Guilin which is a scenic city along the Li River. This entire area has a lot of the landscape you see in Chinese artwork. There are tall, narrow limestone mountains, rich vegetation and bamboo groves throughout the area. Our highlight here was a 2-1/2 hour cruise down the Li River through much of the beautiful landscape. We also got the chance to tour some of the areas of the city where few tourists go with a young Chinese student we met. We saw a local market where you can select your live chicken, have it weighed and carry it off for dinner. For an extra charge, they will kill it for you. If you're inclined to a vegetarian lifestyle, don't go to China. You'll never want to eat meat again. We dined with our new Chinese friend that evening and he took us to a restaurant where you can pick your snake, turtle, duck or fish all from receptacles in front of the restaurant. I was just happy there were no dogs or cats in cages waiting to be cooked.

As luck would have it, there was a night market along the riverwalk right across from our hotel, the Sheraton. At this point, we'd finished most of our shopping, so this was for sport. The merchants of Guilin were brought to their knees and we got some of the best deals of the trip here.