Guilin - Climbing Hills
This city is known for sharp karst formations. Many of them are climbable with parks built onto them. One park has a stone called “Sword Testing Stone” which has a small gap between the stone and the ground. It has an underground cave area with buddhas carved into the stone. Diecai hill has a slide made a marble which you can slide down. The view of the hills, river, and city are incredible. Elephant rock is the largest and most popular hill.
The hill next to our hotel by the river
River, raft, mountain
Entrance to the cave
Inside the cave
Formations and decorations in the cave
Carved buddha in the cave
More buddha figures
Sword testing stone
Big Buddha
Tao
Teapot Tao
Camelia
Signs at Diecai hill in Chinese, English, Korean, and German
Massive monstera deliciosa at Diecai hill
Carved buddha in the caves at Diecai hill
Diecai
View from the top of Diecai hill
There is a marble slide at a point on Diecai hill near the top. You can slide down it using the cloth provided. It gets pretty fast but you can slow yourself down using your feet on the sides of the slide. The curved sections of the slides are faceted, not perfectly smooth, so be prepared to control your speed!
Looking in another direction
Another beautiful view of the river from the top of Diecai hill
Looking south toward the first hill from earlier in the day
Looking north
Turtle and fish in the pool at Elephant rock
The elephant rock, namesake of the park
a glass artist
Information about Samantabhadra tower
View from Samantabhadra tower
View of Guilin from Samantabhadra tower
A shrine with a water buffalo skull
Cormorant fisherman
Tao. There were droves of people taking selfies and portraits here, so it took a while to get down close to the water.
Bridge in Elephant rock park
Bean tree.
