It is possible to take bamboo raft ride from Chaobanshan to Nine Horse Mountain in the other side of the Yulong River. Chaobanshan is very near to Xingping and your taxi drover should know. However, it i important to know hat bamboo raft is only available for hire after 1:30 pm.

Nog even een aanvulling. Wij hebben de Li rivier met de boot gedaan. Op de andere rivier de Yulong, waar we langs hebben gefietst, hebben wel veel bamboevlotten gezien, maar een cruise?geen idee of dat mogelijk is op de yulong rivier. Succes!

Yangshuo is much nicer than Guilin, so skip Guilin and take taxi directly to YS from GL airport. Should cost around 300Y and take 1 hour or so. But make sure to say you are willing to pay for the expressway road toll (around 30Y) or otherwise the driver will take the much slower highway which currently is under repair (anything from 1.5h to 3h). We stayed at the Yangshuo C. Source West Street Residence (search for "Yangshuo West Street Residence" on TripAdvisor and my review there). For our bike tour we arranged from one of the freelancing tour guides roaming West Street. Do not bother using the hotels - they are mostly just middlemen to a larger tour agency which may be a hit or miss when it comes to individual travel arrangements). Most of the freelancing guides are women and speak enough English for what you need (if you speak Chinese it is of course better!) We hired "Esther" (Zeng Shiyan曾诗燕 13617860516 or 13667866009) who is most often found close to KFC on West Street). Anyway, most guides can arrange whatever you ask for! Bikes, e-bikes, electric "golf cart", tandem bikes, ordinary car... The guide then can take you along less trafficked roads towards northwest upstreams Yulong River passing beautiful countryside along the way. There are several spots where you can take a raft, but none of them will travel the whole length of the river. Each dock serves just a specific stretch of the river. We went by bike to Jiuxian Dock (旧县码头), crossed the bridge and continued north along a common countryside gravel road to the next bridge upstream. From there, back to Jiuxian and the newly beautifully paved pedestrian/bike path along the east side of Yulong River towards the Banyan Tree/Gongnong Bridge. There are several places to take a raft trip en route: Jiuxian, Xiatang, Chaoyang, Aishanmen, Mountain Retreat etc. (We, seven people, however went by bike and "golf cart" all the way. The scenery is the same and the rather expensive bamboo rafts only take two persons each). Perhaps Jiuxian is the best place for rafting unless you continue even further upstream to the most beautiful stone bridge: the arched Yulong Bridge. Quite a long ride but manageable for most people. Maybe not for you if you have a flight to catch the same afternoon/evening... The guide can arrange (probably quite late by now!) lunch near Moon Hill, and then it is an easy bike ride back to YS along the main road (8 km or so). If there is time: a climb up Moon Hill is recommended! If you are short of time, you can just go by bike to Jiuxian, ride down to Banyan Tree and back to YS for a taxi to the airport. In any case - a guide is well worth the 200Y or so it will cost for a day since she will arrange for rental bikes, fix discounted tickets (for the banyan tree etc) and knows both the roads/paths and where to stop for the best photogenic views! (of course bikes and tickets are paid separately and not included in her fee). Li River: The good thing about the motor rafts or other ferries along the much larger Li River, is that you can go to interesting and historic villages/towns like Fuli and Liugong. Otherwise, the natural scenery along Yulong River is _much_ better than Li River downstream Yangshuo.

It depends on the quality of the bike. For a normal bike I payed 200 Yuan for 6 weeks, but if you like a better one, it will be much more. The area here is totally flat, so it is not necessary to have a mountainbike or anything else. The raftigtour for me with transportation of my bike was about 200 Yuan, but actually I didn't bargain, so may be you can get it much cheeper.

I preferred the Yulong river! It's much more quite and not so overcrowded! If you are interested in rent a bike and bike along the river - it's an absolut gorgeous landscape!

It's not quite the cold you should worry about since the cold is quite bearable with warm clothing. The cold is not very cold, even with wind. It is the rain you should worry about. It can rain the whole day - light rain though. And the rain can last many days in a row. A boat ride is ok with the rain but you will have problem with other out-door activities like cycling.

The only rafting we went on was several hundred metres up the river and back. I don't know if there is rafting fully along the river or not.

The easiest way is book via your hotel or a travel agent. Yangshuo is a small village, folks seem to know each other. You can also purchase tickets by the Yulong at the dock, but might be pricy. The questions before booking are: 1) how do you want to organize your transportation before and after--car/bike ride or mix both; 2) how long do you want this journey to be? it stars from 30 mins to 3 hours, I think 1 hour is good. Also book it at early morning or later afternoon to avoid crowds. (we did it at 7AM)

I hired a guide through my hostel (Trippers Carpe Diem) because I was travelling solo and wanted to do a hike along the Yulong River, countryside farms, and then a bamboo raft ride. We started at the Dragon Bridge. The hike/raft excurion was an all day event and the guide cost 200Y. Raft was an extra 200Y for 2 people. I was there in May and it was in the 90s, so I really enjoyed the cooler temps on the water. Both places I stayed in Yangshuo and Ping'an (rice terraces) arranged transportation for me. It was 650Y for the car from Ping'an to Yangshuo. I stayed at Bai Ke Hotel in Ping'an and would recommend 2 nights there; and the full day hike through the villages.