Yulong River

Chinese name: 遇龙河（Yu Long He）
Location: Yangshuo County, Guilin, Guangxi .
Ticket: Free
Estimated tour time: 3-5 hours
Recommended time to visit: May-Oct
Nearby attractions: Li River, Yangshuo West Street, Longji Terrace, Impression Sanjie Liu, etc.

The Yulong River is a small tributary of the larger Li River in Southeastern Guangxi that runs through the major city of Guilin to Yangshuo. The Yulong starts in Northern Yangshuo County near Litang and runs for over 35 kilometres through small villages of the Yulong River Valley, including Litang, Chaolong, Yima and Gaotian town, before emptying into the Li around the town of Ping Le. 

Unlike the busy Li River, it has no motorized boat traffic and relies completely on bamboo rafts to ferry passengers downriver. This has become a popular tourist activity, with passengers beginning their journey at the Yulong Bridge, a 400-year-old stone bridge. As the local government has improved local roads through the Yulong River Valley, biking has also become a popular tourist activity.

Most people always say:“If you don’t experience the bamboo raft in Yulong River, you waste this wonderful trip.”The bamboo raft is a common transportation in the south of the Changjiang River, and it  has an important status in the China water transport.

The southern areas of the Changjiang River are abounding in bamboo, so the clever local people use the bamboo to make a simple and practical boat--bamboo raft. A small bamboo raft is made by binding 5 to 8 bamboos together; if you want a big one ,you can bind 11 to 16 bamboos. The raft seems to be simple and crude, but its stability is very good and it is very safe. It can sail easily in the shoal water.

When you drift by bamboo raft, you can experience the life-style of the local people, and you can talk with the boatman to know some interesting stories about this place. On this crude and special boat, you also can see the beautiful sceneries  and  the aquatic plants clearly. It can give you an illusion that you were sailing in a traditional Chinese painting.