We went to Seven Star Scenic Area (七星景区) on our last day in Guilin (桂林). My friend and I were weak after a series of unfortunate events encountered in Xingping (兴坪). I did not know about Foong. He seemed like he was still as strong as a bull! The Seven Star Park is located on the east bank of Li River (漓江) and is approximately 1.5 kilometers from Guilin city center. The park has a total area of 134.7 hectares and is the largest and longest established park in Guilin. The hill in the scenic area consists of seven limestone peaks, hence the name Seven Star Scenic Area.
Inside a tuk tuk heading to Seven Star Park
Entrance to the Seven Star Scenic Area
We each paid an entrance fee of 35 Chinese Yuan. Qixia Temple (栖霞禅寺) was the first which came into the focus of our attention. The temple was built in the Tang Dynasty (唐朝), and is the largest Tang architectural style temple in China. Qixia Temple is a large temple complex with a few smaller temples within its compound. One of such is the Daxiong Temple (大雄宝殿).
Interesting carvings
Outside Qixia Temple
Inside Qixia Temple
Daxiong Temple
Incense burner
Inside Daxiong Temple
Inside Daxiong Temple
After the Qixia Temple, we went to the Seven Star Cave (七星岩). A popular saying to summarize the beauty of Guilin is “3 hills 2 caves, 2 rivers 4 lakes” (三山两洞，两江四湖), and the Seven Star Cave is one of the 2 caves. The Seven Star Cave is an extensive limestone cave complex in the Seven Star Park. There is an additional 30 Chinese Yuan entrance fee to enter the cave. We joined a scheduled tour conducted in Mandarin. An apology to Foong and my friend whose self claim their Mandarin sucks. Once inside the cave, we walked on a concrete and stone path running through the cave. The guide briefed us on the various limestone formations inside the cave. There is artificial lighting along the tour path as well as on the various formations. We were also told that Guilin folks took refuge in this gigantic cave complex during the Japanese invasion of China in World War II.
Cliff carvings outside of Seven Star Cave
Cliff carvings outside of Seven Star Cave
Cliff carvings outside of Seven Star Cave
Cliff carvings outside of Seven Star Cave
Entrance to Seven Star Cave
Colorful stalactites
Stalactite
A Frontier Scenery (边寨风光)
An old man at the theatre (老人看戏).
A bumper harvest (五谷丰登)
Stalactites & stalagmites
Calcite steps
Columns
Stalactites & stalagmites
Stalactites & stalagmites
Calcite pool
Bird nest alike?
A column
Calcite pool
A column
After visiting the Seven Star Cave, we made our move to see giant panda in the Panda Exhibition Hall. Prior to coming to Guilin, I had read that there are 2 giant pandas in the Seven Star Scenic Area. We did eventually see Yang Yang and Yue Yue, but they seemed lifeless behind the glass panel. I had seen lively giant panda in the wild in Chengdu, Sichuan 2 years ago. Here is my piece of advice to all giant panda lovers out there. Go to Sichuan if you want to see giant pandas. Sichuan is the homeland of this living fossil on earth. Alternatively, you can take a look at Foong or me as we both have a panda face, right Foong?
Bamboo plants
Beautiful bridge
There are many other scenic attractions within the Seven Star Park such as the Flower Bridge (花桥), Putuo Hill (普陀山), Crescent Hill (月牙山) and Camel Hill (骆驼山), just to name a few. We did not get to visit any of them. We were simply too exhausted near the end of our journey. We bided farewell to the Seven Star Scenic Area and headed back to our hostel.
Technorati Tags: Guilin, Seven Star Park, Seven Star Cave, stalactite, stalagmite
The Seven Star Scenic Area by Life Is Like That, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Malaysia License.
jam | 
November 25th, 2009 | 
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the place looks like those scenery in a Chinese kung fu movies! Awesome!
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Ya it is!
Jam, I love the cravings on 13th pix very nice “design” words even though I do not understand the meaning. BTW is that Foongpc’s head in the first pix? Bit by bit we are seeing foongpc haha. Love all the caves so serene. Xiexie ക
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No bananaz, that’s not me. If it’s me, I’ll sue Jam. Haha!
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No worries, Foong! You won’t get any chance to sue me
No, that’s not Foong! That’s our tuk tuk driver!
The beauty inside the cave must be awesome!
2 pandas are coming over to Singapore from China by next year, so I don’t have to travel far to see the panda!
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That’s good! Then I can also travel to Singapore to see the panda next time!
wow..totally amazing view..nice picture shots especially the cave ones..
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Luckily I was able to shoot some nice photos inside the cave with the help of artificial lighting.
The carvings are very beautiful. Love it.
I just realized that yours and Foong’s blog have panda icons. No wonder you 2 so ‘ngam key’. Coz both of you are really pandas. haha
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Yeah, we are both pandas! Jam = Kungfu panda. Me = Beijing Olympic mascot panda : )
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You want to be one too?
Wowie, lovely caves and nice photos and scenery, btw just trying to figure out the costing how much would be the difference if you guys go on a package tour all the way from KL as compared to your last trip to China on a free and easy style in terms of percentage? Thanks
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My own designed package is of almost the same cost on paper if compared to package tour by KL agencies. But those packages in KL have yet included some hidden cost like tips to the porter and tour guide. Besides, if one follows packages from KL, you will spend most part of your tour on the bus traveling from one place to another. Travel agencies tend to travel a lot while I prefer to concentrate only on 1 or 2 places. Another thing I do not like about travel agencies is they tend to enter China via Guangzhou before proceeding to Guilin. Hope this helps!
Cave photography isn’t easy. I wasn’t successful with photographing caves when I visited one in Sandakan.
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Substantial lighting is required in cave photography. I was lucky for the presence of artificial lighting inside the Seven Star Cave.
Jam ok you guys want a free & easy to have a choice of your own and able to decide what, when and where to go and not so much about savings as compared to package tour its like ‘refugees’ hopping in and out of coaches and further more lots of optional sight seeing and shopping stops involved. Gotcha. Thanks
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love all the cave pics. wow. awesome
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Thanks and good to hear that!
wow..this is a good night scene mode of the cave..any extra translation of the chinese carvings? i’m curious to know
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It’s too hard to explain the translation here, there are so many of them
The limestone hills reminded my of my hometown, Ipoh, and also Gua Tempurung. When I was in China too, I saw a lot of carvings on stone and wood, but have no idea what they meant.
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