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| Mount Elephant, Fubo Hill & Folded Brocade Hill |
| Elephant Trunk Hill |
Mount Elephant Park
The elephant hill, also called the elephant trunk hill, lies on the conjunction of the Li River and the peach blossom river. It is the badge of Guilin city.
Elephant Trunk Hill
The whole hill looks exactly like a huge elephant stretching its trunk drinking water by the Li River. It is the masterpiece of karst landscape, composed of pure limestone deposited on seabed 360million years ago.
"Moon-over-Water" Cave
Between the "trunk" and the "body" is a vast round cave which resembles a full moon on water hence the name "Moon-over-Water" Cave. When the waters wave and the moonlight gleams, the scene is exceedingly enchanting. This cave intoxicated innumerous poets through ages. Many lines can be found giving high honor of the cave.On the top of the hill stands a pagoda-Puxian Pagoda. Built in Ming dynasty, it has a long history. At the foot of the hill is Yunfeng Temple, inside which is now the exhibition of "The Revolution of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom in Guilin". |
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| Fubo Hill |
The beautiful Fubo Hill, in the northeast of the city, is well known as the Wonderland on Wave with its exquisite peak rising high and its foot half in water and half on land.Fubo Hill (Fuboshan, or Wave Subduing Hill ), yet another of Guilin's karst mountains, has  one of the most unique and interesting shapes of all the hills around here and contains many interesting sights. The mountain itself resembles a wave reaching up to the sky and descending down into the river.The east of the cave curbs the river stream, causing the formation of a deep pool, so the hill is named Fubo Hill (Wave-Curbing Hill).At the southern foot of the hill is a garden full of bamboos, palm trees and flowers, a quite and interesting place.There is a stone path on the southern side of the hill.
Half way up the hill is a Sight-Seeing Terrace from which you can see the Old Man Hill northwest to it, resembling an old man in the hood looking up to the south. It is so life-like that you can even distinguish his brow and beard. The way from the Sight-Seeing Terrace to the summit of the hill can be compared with the way to the West Peak in the Hua Mountain. It is narrow and steep. Only the brave ones  dare to scale the heights and find the climbing interesting.At the foot of the hill is the famous Pearl-Returning Cave, which is composed of many side-caves, linked like a labyrinth. A several-meter stalactite column, thick on top and tapering downwards, hangs all the way from the ceiling the ground. It is so strange that no visitors will see it without amazement. Since the space between the column and the ground seems to be the result of a sword cut it is named Sword Testing Stone. The step beside the Sword Testing Stone wind their way up to the Thousand Buddha Cave, in which are more than 200 Buddha statues made in the Tang Dynasty. Fubo Hill also famous for its stone inscriptions.
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| Folded Brocade Hill |
By the Li River, the Folded Brocade Hill is one of the three most famous hills in Guilin (the other two are Fubo Hill and Elephant Trunk Hill). It consists of Yuyue Hill, Siwang Hill (Looking-in-Four-Direction Hill), Crane Peak and Bright Moon Peak. The hill is so named because layers and layers of multi-colored rocks  one atop another like a great pile of folded brocade.Half way up the hill, a cave penetrates from north to south. With two spacious mouths and a narrow middle, the cave takes a shape of a calabash. The cave adopted its name for a cool breeze continually blows in the cave all year round. It is well-known for 90 Buddha images of the Tang and Song dynasty. After thousands of years' rain and wind, these images are still vivid and life-like.On the top of the hill stands the cloud-catching Pavilion, which commands a panoramic view of the city below.Others impressive sights here include: Folded Brocade Pavilion, River-Viewing Pavilion and Yuyue Pavilion. Solitary Beauty Peak and Wave-subduing Hill can be seen from Folded Brocade Hill.
The main attractions in Folded Brocade hill include the Folded Brocade Pavilion, the Yuyue Pavilion, the Chengren Tablet of Masters Qu and Zhang, the Yangzhi Hall, the Wind Cave, the Brocade Building, the Wangjiang Pavilion and the Nayun Pavilion. |
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