Continuing on, we next head southeast to the area around the city of Guilin.

We will be flying from Chengdu to the city of Guilin. The distance between the two is 855km or 531mi and the flight should take about one and a half hours. The trains between the two take about 7hrs, so that wasn’t a good choice for this leg of the trip.

Over the next four days, we will be moving through a picturesque section of southern China in the Guangxi Province. This region is famed for its beautiful scenery – green fields, caves and interesting rock formations – which border the Li River.

We start off in the city of Guilin where we will be staying at the Shangri-La Hotel for one night. We won’t have much time to really see a lot of Guilin as we leave the next day on a river boat cruise on the Li River to Yangshuo. The cruise is about 4.5 hours and will give us views that promise to be photo-rific! We’ll be staying for two nights at the Li River Resort in Yangshuo. On the fourth day we will drive to the rice terraces of Longji and will stay overnight at the Baike Hotel, before heading back to Guilin.

Guilin has a cultural history of over 2000 years. The city was founded during the Qin Dynasty and was made the provincial capital by the Ming Emperors until 1914.

Yangshuo rests along the Li River and is described by the Chinese as ‘the most beautiful place in China’. The town is supposed to be very charming with many western-style shops and cafes. While in Yangshuo, we will be partaking in a cooking class at a small, culinary school – which should be interesting and provide a few laughs as I hack my way around the kitchen.

Longji will be our final stop in this region. Longji, the ‘Dragon’s Backbone’, refers to the region made up of five local Zhuang villages set amongst steep rice terraces in the mountains to the north of Guangxi province. The views from Ping An village stretch across the mountains, offering stunning views of the rice terraces.

After a day in Longji, we’ll be heading back to Guilin by way of a drive through the beautiful countryside. From there, we’ll be off to Shanghai.

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So the novel coronavirus is still expanding as of the middle of Feb. 2020. Many more people have been confirmed to have the virus and there are many people waiting to be tested. While the outbreak is centered in China, the virus has spread around the world with cases in many countries.

We are still hopeful that things will get better in time for us to travel to China in the fall, but my hopefulness is dimming. Most of the airlines have suspended flights to China as have most of the cruise lines – although they are talking about re-opening the casinos in Macau. They are hoping that the warmer weather will help to kill off the virus, as it doesn’t appear to handle heat well.

We have until July before we need to make our final payment. If the travel bans are still in place, we have been talking about possible “Plan B” or “Plan C” destinations and we’ll postpone visiting China until next year.

Cross your fingers for us, and say a prayer for the people in China. Let’s hope this doesn’t keep expanding and threatening everyone in the world.