Guilin Gudong Waterfall is located 26 kilometers from Guilin, in the Crown Cave Scenic Area. It is the only one waterfall group formed by underground water (springs) in China. As a result, the water is very clean and clear. The primitive forest area around the waterfall covers about 1000 acres. The ancient trees grow extremely high, of which the red maple is said to be the most attractive. The waterfall is the closest waterfall to the city and also a good place for mountain climbers and hikers because of the many mountains around the waterfall.

June 9th, 2007, colleagues from our Guangzhou office came to Guilin for their holidays. Most people from our office joined them and guided them to visit Gudong Waterfall. Unfortunately, it was raining on the day, when we went there, so we missed the most exciting activity-climbing up the waterfall. What a pity especially for our guests from Guangzhou. In Gudong area, the nature and human are very harmonious and the environment is quite serenity. We could enjoy breathing the freshest air, smelling the fragrance of the earth and the flowers, listening to the birds singing on trees in the mountain around and seeing the waterfall pulling down from the mountain.

After walking along the flagging road, which trees in two sides were green, and then crossed a lake by "Benz", a kind of local wooden boat named by the local people. When crossing, we were doing three things. One was feeding fish in the water. The water is very clean that we could see the fish swimming in the water. But what a pity, the water is turbid after heavy raining, we only used the fish bait to make them coming up. Second was taking photos or enjoying the scenery of mountain in the rain and the third was singing against with a girl who dressed Zhuang ethnic clothes. Zhuang minority is the largest minority group in China. Over 90% of them live in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, which Guilin belongs to. They like singing which has become their custom. They are singing the songs of their life, so as to make friends, show love, and express their good wishes for happy life. Thus, the rainbow of folk songs has been built among different minorities in Guangxi, in China, and even in the world. Nanning International Folk Song Arts Festival makes it becoming a kind of exchanging culture. As a result, embroidered sphere, which is a kind of handcraft of Zhuang people, becomes a symbolic gift sent to their friends. We sang a Zhuang song together, so we got the gift. If you want to get the sphere, you need to sing. We lost ourselves in the sights, smells and songs. So if foreigner who want to enjoy this singing culture, don’t hesitate to learn a simple and representative song of Liu Sanjie, you may be popular with local girls, and get more sphere. Have a try, if you interested.

After crossing the river, we began our walking to visit the waterfall groups, there are 8 groups. Since it has been raining for several days, the water much heaver than normal. The rain stopped us from climbing up the waterfall. We only took some photos on beside it. We should definitely climb up it if it is a sunny day. However, what we could do instead is walking along the zigzag path besides the waterfall up to the top. Jimmy, our Guangzhou colleague, was worried his shoes would be wet in the rain. So he took off his shoes to walk on bare feet. He really did what the ancient people did. Not shoes on feet, he must feel more natural than what we do. Walking up to the top of the mountain was really a hard job to most of us, especially when the top is not the end. After a short rest on the top, we continued our walking, when we saw the HangingBridge, all of us excited. I was afraid of passing this kind of bridge, because it was swaging all the time besides it was a deep valley below it. The boys and girls shake it when they passed, laughed and shouted. I only stood by laughing. Around the bridge was a maple forest, if it was autumn, we might enjoy the magnificent scenery of red maples. What a pity, it was a summer time. Passing the bridge, we got down the mountain.

One more exciting activity on the way down was taking cable chair. Most of us chose to take it, but not directly to the foot of Mt. We needed to continue to walk down, after getting down from the chair. If chose to walk down instead, we could saw many interesting words carving on the stone. It would be interested too. I will do it next time.

When we got down the mountain, we took horse-drawn carriage going out, the horse is called "BMW" by local people.

When we got off the local "BMW", we said goodbye to Gudong. I’ll come back again, but the weather should be good, I can’t miss to climb the waterfall, maybe in Autumn, when the maples are red……

Author: Lina Huang Date: Nov 16, 2007

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