It is the River Li in Guangxi Province. A magical and beautiful place near the city of Guilin.
I stayed a few nights at the Tea Cosy Hotel on the banks of the Li near a city called Yangshuo. From my hotel room I watched a guy ploughing a field using an ox.
An amazing place.
The Phantom
PS.- The cormorant fisherman towards the end of the video places an electrical cable tie around the birds neck so it cannot swallow the fish it catches. The fisherman then removes the fish from the bird's throat.
-- Edited by The Phantom on Monday 21st of September 2015 09:51:43 AM
Those "hills" are called karsts and abound throughout the area. There is often a mist about and the karsts appear shrouded in the mists giving them a dream-like quality.
Many of the Chinese paintings and drawings from the area feature the karsts.
A most beautiful place.
In Yangshuo, the Li River Mountain Water Theatre performs the Impressions Sanjie Liu on the world's largest natural stage. It stretches for 2 kms and has 12 mountain karsts as a background. The show is staged at dusk and into the dark with the karsts lit up by massive floodlights at various stages. The show is held on the water with floating stages and water craft (mostly the bamboo rafts shown in the video). The lighting and costumes are spectacular.
If anyone is interested, I would recommend it. It has been 4 years since I was there but I have a few contacts at the Tea Cosy Hotel that may be of use. The owner runs a tourist guide business as well.
We went on a riverboat following a fisherman. He had 4 or 5 birds that were fishing for him. I never saw him give any of the birds a fish as they couldn't swallow anyway but he probably did so away from the tourists. At the end of the trip he allowed his birds to perch on the arms of the tourists, and they are bloody heavy.
His fishing boat was one of the bamboo rafts with the long shaft motor as shown in the video. He scoots along at a fair pace to keep up with the birds.
In the video at the 1.20 minute mark there is a scene of a karst with a half moon hole in it. That is Half Moon Hill and it has a track leading to the top. The track is mostly steps. I think I was told that there was 1700 steps leading to the top.
About half way up I was passed by an old lady carrying a backpack and she left me behind, no trouble. At the top she had set up a stall selling cold water, beer and tea. She spoke a little English and told me she was 72 years old. I felt a bit embarrassed as, at the time, I was only 64 and she had left me for dead. All she wanted was some Australian coins for her collection but as I was living in China at the time, I had none. An amazing lady and she climbed that hill every day to sell her stuff.
