One of my local friends recommended me to visit Lingqu/灵渠 when I was in Guilin. Actually, I had never heard about it, but I would like to follow her advice.

Lingqu is located at Northeastern Guilin and it takes about 40 minutes driving from downtown of Guilin.

Lingqu was first built in 214 BC, which is one of the oldest great projects made by people. It was also one of the oldest world grand canal.

Lingqu has been very important man-made canal connecting Lijiang/漓江 and Xiangjiang River/湘江 since it was built over two thousands years ago. In fact, Zhujiang River/珠江 was linked to Yangtze River/长江 indirectly by Lingqu.

Xiangjiang River was divided into two parts when it floated into Lijiang by ploughshare mouth/铧嘴, so Lingqu consisted of the Southern part and the Northern part. It takes five minutes to take the boat from one side to ploughshare mouth.

Some local people still live in the village. They catch fish and do some washing every day in the river.

The Southern part has 80% floating water from Xiangjiang river, on the contrary, the Northern part only covers 20%. The water would float into the middle big pond automatically if flood happened in some years.

Four people contributed a lot to constructing Lingqu, so local people built memorial hall in memory of them. 

The old tree witnessed each moment when Lingqu developed.

Some interesting monuments

I happened to visit the Commemoration Museum of Xiangjiang Battle, where it is next to Lingqu. 

It was a good chance to learn the relating history and cherish current peaceful life nowadays.

Many students and artists were gathered here to honour the memory of the heroes, who died in the battle.

Try to learn and experience something special as much as we can when we are traveling in the tourist destinations.