The hook
The landscape from the back of the twenty-yuan note come to life: hundreds of steep, rounded limestone peaks rising like green teeth out of paddy fields and a slow jade-green river winding among them.
01Why it's worth it
This is the karst scenery that has filled Chinese painting for centuries, and it is real: the Li River drifts south from Guilin between countless isolated limestone towers, their bases wrapped in bamboo and rice, water buffalo and fishing villages along the banks. The classic experience is the river journey between Guilin and the traveller town of Yangshuo, whether on a cruise boat or, better on the quieter upper stretches, a bamboo raft, watching the peaks slide past in the haze. Yangshuo makes a base for cycling and walking through the countryside among the pinnacles, past the Yulong river and the rice terraces of Longji further out. Mist, so often the enemy of a view, here only deepens the effect, layering the peaks into the ink-wash paintings they inspired.
02How to experience it
Take the river between Guilin and Yangshuo, choosing a raft on the calmer sections over the crowded big boats. Base in Yangshuo and cycle the back roads and the Yulong river among the peaks. Add the Longji rice terraces for a different angle on the same limestone country.