Discover Guilin and Yangshuo
Two Rivers and Four Lakes
两江四湖
A restored ring of waterways through central Guilin linking the Li and Taohua rivers with four lakes, crossed by replica bridges and lit at night, with the twin Sun and Moon pagodas as the centrepiece. Walking the shore costs nothing; the night boat is the paid version.
The story
What makes this place special
Two Rivers and Four Lakes is a ring waterway through central Guilin, formed by joining the Li River and the Taohua River to four lakes - Rong, Shan, Gui and Mulong - so that boats can make a circuit of the city centre. The lakes are old; Rong and Shan were part of the Song city moat system. The connecting works and the lighting scheme are modern, built to turn the city centre into an evening attraction, and they are the main reason anyone spends a night in Guilin city rather than going straight to Yangshuo.
What you’ll discover
The standard experience is the night boat, which runs the ring, passing under a series of bridges each built as a copy of a famous bridge elsewhere in the world, past the floodlit Sun and Moon Pagodas standing in Shan Lake - one bronze-clad, one glazed - and past Elephant Trunk Hill on the river section. There are short staged performances of Guangxi minority song and cormorant fishing on the banks as the boats pass. On foot, the lakeside promenades and the pagodas are open to walk around for nothing.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Walking the lakeside at night is free and is most of the pleasure. The boat adds the bridges, the river section and the bank performances; if the budget is tight, walk the Rong and Shan lake shores and look at the pagodas from the bank.
- This is an evening thing only. By day the lakes are an ordinary city park and the pagodas are unremarkable; the whole scheme is built around the lighting.
- The bridges are deliberate international copies - a Roman arch, a Dutch-style bridge, a glass one - which strikes some visitors as kitsch and others as fun. Knowing that in advance saves confusion on the boat.
- It is the right thing to do on the evening of a Li River cruise day or the night before an early departure, because it is in the city and takes about an hour and a half.
- You can usually walk into the Sun Pagoda on Shan Lake separately, and it is reached by an underwater passage from the Moon Pagoda, which is the detail visitors do not expect.
When to come
After dark, from roughly 7.30pm, when the lighting is on; boats run into the late evening. Warm months are more pleasant on an open deck. Any season works since it is all artificially lit.
Getting around
Mixed, leaning good. The lakeside promenades are flat, paved and lit, with ramps, and a wheelchair user can do a long circuit of the lake shores and see the pagodas and the lighting - this is one of the best accessible evenings in Guangxi. The boats are the problem: boarding is by gangway onto a pontoon, usually with steps, and the deck seating is fixed. Ask the operator in advance.
Worth knowing before you go
If the cruise price puts you off, the free walk around Shanhu Lake past the two illuminated pagodas gives you most of the same view, and the pagodas are best photographed from the far bank.
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