I am planning a very short trip to Guilin from Beijing in April. I plan to arrive late morning and would like to do a half-day tour of Guilin. The website tours generally include Fubo Hill, Reed Flute Cave and Elephant Hill for around $42. Later that evening I would like to see Impression – Liu Sanjie in Yangshuo. Is hiring a private car my only option of going to Yangshuo for this show? How much will this cost? My other option is to see a show at the Li River Folk Customs Center. Does anyone have any comments on either show? On my second day, I plan to do a full day Li River Cruise. Online these tours costs from $60.to $72. Should I book these tours online before I leave the U.S. since I may not have time to do any planning in Beijing or can I wait until I arrive in Guilin?

We booked a Li river cruise in Guilin for about $40 each, including lunch and transportation to and from the hotels. There are many places selling these tours (including at the airport when you arrive).

If you are going on the Li River Cruise to Yang Shuo anyway, why not just spend the night in Yang Shuo and see the show that night, then take the bus back to Guilin the next am. Yangshou is IMHO alot more fun than Guilin and with a huge expait community.

When I was there the evening water show was cancelled due to the very high water level in the river, but was really highly recommended by alot of people. I'm sorry I missed it.

i think you can book boat ticket when you arrive in guilin, it is easy and you can book it at hotel or travel agency.

Also think about night fishing....where the fishermen tie ropes around the ducks' necks and then yank them on board when they catch the fish....Yes it was touristy, but the cool thing is all the tourists were Chinese! We still felt like we had a "local" experience and a great memory.

this is old now but since it was revisited, i will add for future generations that the official guilin tourist desk at the airport told us that the full guilin cruise to yangshou is RMB350 (about US42). i think this is high as everything this office quoted was high (we didn't want to buy anything just to get information on the bus to yangshou).

once in yangshou, you can do a small boat cruise (2-6 people) from xing ping to yangdi (the best part of the river for scenery) for about US7 including all transport to/from yangshou.

the bus from guilin airport to yangshou (in fact, you must transfer to another bus in guilin city) costs 30 RMB. foreigners are overcharged for the public bus from guilin city to yangshou. keep in mind that these buses may not leave until full so i would not trust them going to the airport unless i had a lot of extra time. we did the bus to yangshou and the taxi back to the airport. the taxi cost us RMB 200 arranged through a travel shop - you might do better arranging yourself with a driver (the hotel's price was 230).

Were those ducks with ropes around their necks?? My experience in Guilin and other provinces were large black birds called cormorants, a metal ring is fastened around their neck so they don't swallow the fish they catch, the ring is removed when the fisherperson has enough fish so the cormorants can feed themselves.