Already in 2016, we did the initial scouting for a trip to Guilin, but eventually, put it on the back burner because of time constraints. The beginning of this year we decided to resurrect the Guilin tour and dusted off all our previous contacts, and, eventually, at the end of July, we revisit Guilin to check up on some gaps in our planning.
Xingping Sunrise
We now have a photography tour planned that we think, will create some great photographs and even more important, some fond memories.
Like most of our China tours, we start at Hong Kong Airport where we will pick up all the photographers and transport them to Shenzhen in Mainland China.
This tour will have two major destinations, namely Guilin and Shenzhen. On our previous tour, Shenzhen was not seen as a destination, but rather just a starting and ending point. But Shenzhen has so much to offer that we decided to dedicate about half of the time to visit Shenzhen. Shenzhen is also our home base, so we have the advantage of local knowledge!
Here is the plan:
The first half of the trip will be in the Guilin area with the idea to work our way up to arriving at the Longji Rice Terraces on the 2nd of June - by then the terraces will be filled with water.
Although you will always hear about Guilin, it actually refers to the Guilin District, rather than Guilin, the city. So our trip will start at Yangshuo - about 100km south-east of Guilin, and then go on to Xingping, Xianggongshan and Putaocun before actually arriving in Guilin, the city. We will only stay one night in Guilin as our experience was that, although it is also situated on the banks of the Li-River, the photographic opportunities are not as good as the preceding days' destinations. From Guilin, we will go via Tianxincun to the Longji Rice Terraces.
Here is a day-by-day breakdown with example photos from each area.
Day 1 - Saturday, 25 May 2019
Everybody is supposed to arrive at Hong Kong Airport at about 2 pm. Please confirm the exact time before booking your flights. It is possible to fly directly to Shenzhen International airport, but our experience is that it will add about 8 hours to your flight time with all the transfers required. Let us know if you plan to fly directly to Shenzhen so that we can arrange your transport to the Hotel.
We will arrive about 4 pm at the hotel in Luohu, Shenzhen. After settling in the hotel we will go for dinner at a local restaurant. After dinner, for those still up to it, we will do a stroll through one of the public parks close by. Visiting these parks is an experience unmatched anywhere else in the world.
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Day 2,3 - Sunday/Monday, 26,27 May 2019
Sunday is one of those unavoidable travel days. After breakfast to go to Shenzhen North train station to take the high-speed rail train to Yangshuo in the Guilin district. The China High Speed Rail (HSR) is an experience on its own, with the train to Guilin travelling at up to speeds above 300 kilometres per hour.
We will be arriving in the afternoon, in time to do some exploring for a sunset photograph.
We will stay 2 nights in Yangshuo.
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Yangshuo is famous for its "ancient" West street, and our hotel is just one street away from West Street, so this is an obvious exploring area, and on Monday, most of the weekend tourists will be gone, making it easier for photography.
Although Yangshuo is on the banks of the Li-river, it is also close to the Yulong River, and this is actually the place to explore. Entrance to the Yulong River "Scenic Spot" is free, but they do not allow taxis to pass through, so this will be an area we will need to explore on our own. On our trip in July, we hired an electric scooter (¥50 for the day) as well as bicycles (¥30 for the day) to explore the area. There is a hiking trail with amazing scenery but it is only accessible by foot or with the bicycles (thus the change from scooter to bicycles). There are also many small villages along the river to explore (great with the scooter). This is also the place with its popular bamboo rafts - an interesting option for a slow afternoon. These rafts cost ¥320 for the full-length trip and although I think it is not necessarily a good photo opportunity, it is definitely a great way to explore the scenery.
We tried to include all costs in our trip but decided on excluding these individual transport/activity options, so please budget for them separately.
Day 4,5 - Tuesday/Wednesday, 28,29 May 2019
The morning will be another opportunity for sunrise photos in Yangshou. (On our trip in July, we actually convinced the scooter hire company to keep the scooter overnight in order to get out before sunrise the next morning. Hopefully, we will be able to do a similar arrangement for those who want to get out to photograph the sunrise. )
After a late breakfast, we will go to Xinping. We will stay for two nights in Xingping.
Xingping is known for the mountains depicted on the 20 yuan note. Xingping has two mountain top vantage points for sunrise and sunset photography. There are also many photographic opportunities within walking distance of our hotel, but you may also hire bicycles and electric scooters in Xingping (at the same price).
We again convinced the scooter company to fetch the scooter at 8 pm at night and use it for a sunrise expedition the next morning - very much worth it as can see from the award-winning photo of Xiaoyi: _"Sunrise in Xingping"_.
The famous cormorant fisherman is also available for a sunset photo shoot at about ¥100 per person (plus another ¥50 to take the little boat to the island where he is photographed!). We did not go on the sunset shoot but did see him the next morning where he docks to take tourists on a trip on the river. Although it is a very cliche photo, we will most likely arrange such photo shoot and add it to our library of photos.
Sunrise in Xingpin by Xioayi
Day 6,7 - Thursday/Friday, 30,31 May 2019.
On Wednesday, after breakfast, we will go to Xianggongshan. By car, it is about a 2-hour drive from Xingping, but we decided to use the ferry as it will be a bit more adventurous, and it is only 10 kilometres from Xingping to Xianggongshan.
Sunrise at Xianggongshan
The main attraction of Xiangongshan is its high vantage point overlooking the Li-river with Xingping visible in the far distance. It is a morning shoot, but based on past experience, it is not easy to get a good photo from here. We, therefore, will stay two days to double our chances for a good sunrise. We budgeted only for one day's entrance fee. For those who want to go a second time, the entrance fee is ¥60.
)
Putaocun
There are many interesting landscape scenes around the town which does require a bit of hiking (2-3 kilometres at most) which we will explore on the first day, while we will visit Putaocun on the second day by bus to photograph yet another landscape. Putaochun is typically a sunset photo opportunity.
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Day 8 - Saturday, 1 June 2019
On Saturday, after breakfast, we will go to Guilin. This is again mainly a travel day and Guilin is seen as a stop-over to the rest of our trip. Our Hotel is close to the riverfront which means that we will be able to do some exploring in the late afternoon and evening. As Guilin is a city, it also presents some interesting night photography opportunities.
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Day 9 - Sunday, 2 June 2019
Sunday is the day we will go to the Longji Rice Terraces. For me, this is the highlight of a visit to the Guilin area.
But, we still have one stop to make before we arrive at Longji - Tianxincun
Tianxincun is almost a secret place, we had to ask around a lot to find it, and then, to get there was another challenge as it is definitely not a typical tourist attraction. If we are lucky we could stumble apon a farmer with his water buffalo.
The farmer
(Actually, rolling the dice in our favour is very likely, as we took his phone number when we met him on our previous visit!)
In the afternoon we will arrive at Longji - about a two-hour drive from Tianxincun.
Day 10,11 - Monday/Tuesday, 3,4 June 2019
Staying for 3 nights in Longji gives us a good chance for good sunset or sunrise photos.
If we are lucky, we will also find some local farmers still planting the rice.
Longji is also well known for its minority groups and the women are very willing to be photographed in their traditional wear (with the necessary fee). For the portrait photographers amongst us, the women are very proud of their long hair, and hopefully, we will be able to do some interesting and unique portraiture photography to capture their interesting culture.
The Dragons Backbone
Our visit to Longji is planned to coincide with their planting season. At the end of May or beginning of June, they fill the rice fields with water and then transfer the young rice plants to the terraces. This is, therefore, the time that you get the beautiful reflections in the terraces. If we are lucky we may get mist in the mornings and if we are very lucky, we may even get a beautiful sunrise or sunset with the terraces filled with gold.
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These photos were all taken in June 2016, when we did a blitz visit to the Rice Terraces for one night - arriving in the afternoon and leaving the next morning after breakfast - to confirm the photo possibilities when the rice terraces are filled with water.
On the morning of 4 June, after breakfast, we will take on the long and tiring trip back to Shenzhen. First by bus back to Guilin and then by the HSR to Shenzhen. We should arrive late afternoon or early evening in Shenzhen.
Day 12 - Wednesday, 5 June 2019
To ease us into the city life we will visit the small fishermen's harbour on our first day back in Shenzhen.
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In order to get good photo opportunities, we will linger in the harbour for a few hours. You will notice that there are many men hanging around, playing Chinese chess and cards. But they are actually there for a different reason. They are there waiting for fishing boats to arrive, and on arrival, they will get paid for offloading the catch of the day from the boats - and this is when we will get into action photographing them at work.
From here we will go to OCT (Overseas China Town) where we will yet again get the opportunity to photograph architecture and people.
Sunset will be a seascape opportunity at Hongshuling
Day 13 - Thursday, 6 June 2019
In the morning, at sunrise, I want to go introduce you to The Tree in Renmin Park.
After breakfast, we will leave by bus to visit the ancient Dapen fortress with the ultimate goal to arrive in Nan Ao in the late afternoon.
Nan Ao Fisherman Village
Nan Ao is a fisherman village on the sides of Shenzhen. In order to get the best photo opportunities we will sleep over in Nan Ao for one night. Please plan for an overnight bag as we will return to our hotel in the city the next day and will arrange for the storage of our bags.
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Day 14 - Friday, 7 June 2019
After the sunrise shoot and breakfast, our bus will take us to Dafen. Dafen is an art village in Shenzhen and for me, one of the must visit places. In photography, like in most other things we do, the more practice we get, the better you will get at it - and Defen is like that for me...
This will be my 6th visit to Dafen village and I am again looking forward to the visit. On each visit, I discovered something else to photograph.
The afternoon and evening will be dedicated to photography the Shenzhen skyline from different vantage points.
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Day 15 - Saturday, 8 June 2019
Saturday will be another full day, we wil start at sunrise in the beautiful Honghu park, which is just across from our hotel.
This time of year, the park's best-known feature - the Lotus flowers - will be in full bloom, a great way to start any day.
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After breakfast we will go shopping!!!
We will be visiting Huaqianbei, the biggest eletronics market in ther world. We will also be visiting one of the clothing markets on the way back to our hotel.
Because our day started at sunrise, we decided that we need a siesta at the hotel before going to Shenzhen Talent park for our sunset photo shot.
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Day 16 - Sunday, 9 June 2019
Sunday is time to say goodbye.
We have not planned anything specific for the day as we need to coordinate or travelling back to Hong Kong based on the flight schedules. If there is time, we will add one or two local destinations before going to Hong Kong.
Cost
We have included all accomodation, meals and transport in the cost. The total cost is ¥9700
The optional activities that you may want to do are the following:
- Hiring of bicycles or scooters in the Guilin area (¥30-¥50 per day).
- Bamboo rafting (¥320).
- The Cormorant fishermen sunset shoot at Xingping (¥150).
- The farmer with his water buffalo at Tianxingcun (¥100).
- Model in traditional wear in the Lonji Rice fields (¥10-¥50).
A 50% non-refundable deposit will secure your position on the tour. The balance needs to be paid by the end of March 2019. We will limit the number of photographers to about 10 to keep to our tradition of personal attention.