The karst-studded countryside of Guilin has been celebrated by countless generations of poets and painters. As one modern-day visitor discovers, the area’s allure endures.

Photographs by Callaghan Walsh

*Left to right:* Dumplings at a street stall in Guilin City; Secret Garden owner Ian Hamlinton in the doorway of a village house in Jiuxian.

An eminent poet and scholar-official during the golden age of Song dynasty China, Fan Chengda was also something of an early travel writer. One of his diaries recounts a four-month journey from Suzhou to Guilin on what was then the Middle Kingdom’s southwestern frontier, where, in the spring of 1173, he took up a post governing the mountainous and ethnically diverse Guangxi region. Though banditry and a backward economy plagued his time there, Fan couldn’t help but be inspired by the surreal scenery around him. “I often sent pictures of the hills of Guilin which I painted to friends back home, but few believed what they saw,” he wrote. “There is no point in arguing with them.”

It’s easy to see why Fan’s pals in the Song literati were incredulous. There is something almost supernatural about Guilin’s craggy karst landscape, even to a modern-day traveler armed with the knowledge that these limestone pinnacles were created by millennia of water erosion. When confronted with the magic of the region, I swiftly fell into a more poetic state akin to what Fan must have felt when he described the topography as “like jade bamboo shoots and jasper hairpins, forests of them extend without limit.”

My trip began in Yangshuo, a once sleepy backpacker hub on the banks of the Li River that has transformed over the last decade into a highly commercial tourist town, complete with mini amusement parks, theme hotels, karaoke bars, and other tawdry trimmings. It is, however, a convenient base for exploring the countryside, which I set out to do one morning on a rented bicycle. Pedaling away from Yangshuo’s hubbub, I was soon surrounded by fields peppered with rocky outcroppings that appeared to me like topographic camel humps. The town faded from view as an eerie autumnal mist enshrouded the limestone peaks, giving a filmic quality to the scene. It was as if noted filmmaker Zhang Yimou (also behind the long-running Impression Sanjie Liu light-and-sound extravaganza back in Yangshuo) had had a hand in directing the day. With the crowds of summer long gone and the chill of winter yet to arrive, November proved the perfect month for cycling through the villages that line the Yulong River, a picturesque tributary of the Li. Save for the occasional tour bus and a few young couples taking selfies on bamboo rafts, the splendor of the countryside was mine alone.

*Left to right:* A view across the Li River to distinctive limestone peaks of the Yangshuo area; a shopkeeper in Xingping.

Well, more or less. The farmers who call the riverbanks home weren’t going anywhere. And because the river periodically floods during the rainy season in late spring, there are no roads near its edge, so I instead followed narrow paths along which locals led water buffaloes or carted produce away to market. With soil enriched by runoff from the limestone peaks, as well as by plenty of sunshine and rain, the region harvests a bewildering array of crops including oranges, persimmons, tangerines, and water chestnuts—a yield that informs the eclectic local diet.

A 30-minute ride brought me to Jiuxian. Guilin’s tourist brochures boast of many ancient villages, but some are ancient in name only as local farmers have followed the demolish-and-rebuild ethos that has reshaped so many Chinese communities in recent decades. Jiuxian, however, is the real thing, with a stone bridge that dates to Tang times and crumbling gray-brick mansions and mud-brick farmhouses built during the last century of the Qing dynasty. It’s also home to a lone expat resident known affectionately as Fengzi (“the Crazy One”), whom I decided to seek out. A former architect and China tour guide, South African Ian Hamlinton has lived in these parts since 2003 and earned his loopy reputation several years ago after he rented and began restoring a group of Jiuxian’s derelict 19th-century houses—structures that the villagers considered worthless. I found him lunching with workers who were doing some out-of-season renovations on his gorgeous boutique hotel, the Secret Garden.

An affable and offbeat character, Hamlinton enthused about his adopted home in a way that suggested he had found his own personal Shangri-La. When I asked him why he’d stayed so long, he replied, “You could say it’s the amazing scenery or the delicious food, but I think it’s really the people.” I had half a mind to linger myself when he toured me through his 11-room inn, which, unlike the generic guesthouses and tacky theme hotels found around Yangshuo, exudes a vivid sense of place, from its smattering of local artwork and antiques to its handcrafted wooden furnishings and feng shui–friendly layout. “I believe each of these houses is like a person, with its own individual character,” Hamlinton told me. “Our renovation work—a lot of which I did myself—was really about how to enhance this character, and of course to update any amenities that were lacking. I’m proud that we were able to preserve these buildings for at least another generation. It might be my life’s greatest achievement.”

*Left to right:* Qing-era architecture in the village of Jiuxian; an outdoor seating nook at the Secret Garden Boutique Hotel.

From Jiuxian, I cycled on to Baisha, where, according to Hamlinton, a farmers’ market was held on select days of the month. I was in luck; the town was buzzing with activity. Bargains were being struck over handicrafts, produce, and snacks like sweet rice cakes and stinky tofu, and even though there was plenty of mass-produced tat, the whole scene afforded a glimpse of how the wheels of the rural economy turned.

Looping back to the Yulong, I lunched on egg-fried bamboo shoots and lotus root garnished with red and green chili peppers at a riverside café overlooking the 600-year-old Dragon Bridge, one of the area’s must-see historical attractions. The weed-wreathed stone span conveniently enables cyclists to cross the river and return to Yangshuo along the opposite bank, a circuit known as the Yulong River Loop. As I pedaled back to town on the other side of the river past farmhouses sequestered between sudden karst hills and orange groves, I reflected that perhaps the real magic of the region is how easy it is to simply disappear into a bucolic world unconcerned with the manic rush of modern urban life.

As much as I enjoyed pedaling though the Yulong Valley, I knew that the real story of Guilin is told along the snaking jade waters of the Li River, the area’s defining waterway. So I set my sights on Xingping, a river town situated almost midway between Yangshuo and Guilin City. As getting there would involve navigating 25 kilometers of unmarked dirt tracks, I enlisted the services of local cycling specialists Bike Asia, hiring a better bike and a guide named Sam Gong to lead the way. The going was tougher than the previous day’s ride, but it took us through the heart of the Li River’s fabled scenery. Beyond Fuli, a town famous for its paper fans, we lost ourselves in a bucolic world of cab-bage patches, bamboo groves, and crystalline streams.

*Left to right:* Old-timers in Jiuxian; admiring the old Chinese script on a wall at the Secret Garden Boutique Hotel.

“This is the real China,” Sam said as he struggled to determine which mountain path we should follow north. I didn’t quite agree. Most of China doesn’t look like rural Guilin, and anyway, who’s to say downtown Shanghai is any less real than a parched village in the Gobi? What we did agree on was that this was real living, and I spent the rest of the journey pondering why exactly I had based myself in smoggy and congested Beijing.

We rolled into Xingping five hours after setting out and, ravenous from our exertions, promptly headed to the Old Street Café for pizza and beer. I had visited Xingping a few years prior, and except for those heading to the nearby bend in the river depicted on China’s 20-yuan note, tourists were limited back then. But the town’s old street has since converted itself into a backpacker-friendly strip, though it remains far less garish than Yangshuo.

At the café I got to talking with Xingping’s sole foreign resident, Gregory Michiels, a Belgian who runs a photography tour service called Another Day at the Office. He told me he had traveled widely before falling in love with this corner of China, where he’s lived for two years. He also said he was concerned about the effect the recently opened high-speed rail service between Guangzhou and Guilin might have on places like Xingping, where a station is set to open this year. “Come, let me show you where it is,” he offered.

Michiels had already scouted out all the best mountain trails for his clients, so it didn’t take him long to lead us up a steep dirt path to a rocky ledge overlooking Xingping. The new train station was hidden behind a hill; Michiels explained that once in operation, it will enable travelers from Guangzhou to get here in about three hours, which could seriously transform this sleepy river town. For now, though, Xingping has retained its unhurried rural charm, not to mention some of the finest scenery I’ve ever cast my eyes over.

*Left to right:* A souvenir shop in Xingping; a sightseeing boat on Rong Lake in Guilin City.

Long before the Li was packed with tour boats, it was part of an ancient transport system. The Lingqu Canal was built more than 2,000 years ago to connect the upper course of the Li with the Xiang River, which flows north into the Yangtze, then as now the Middle Kingdom’s longest and most important waterway. Southward the Li feeds the Gui, which eventually becomes a tributary of the Pearl River as it flows toward its delta on the South China Sea. The Li was, in effect, a great inland highway, which helps explain the profusion of old towns along its banks—way stations where merchants could eat, rest, and replenish their supplies.

Wanting to learn more about the river’s mercantile history, I said my goodbyes to Sam and caught a boat upriver to Daxu—whose name means “big market— 20 kilometers or so southeast of Guilin. I arrived during one of the frequent downpours that besiege the region, traipsing over Ming-era flagstones in my sodden Shanghai Warrior sneakers. Still, the occasional breaks in the rain were enough for me to quickly discern how pivotal the Li was to Daxu’s fortunes. Thirteen old docks bristle along the riverbank, while the narrow ancient part of town follows the contours of the waterway for two and a half kilometers.

Crossing the timeworn Longevity Bridge, I found shelter on the porch of a slate-roofed wooden house where a group of elderly folk told me they were all in their nineties. Clearly, the bridge’s auspicious name proved there was something in the water, I suggested. Just across from them was the Liao family residence, which a sign boldly proclaimed to be the oldest and largest house in Daxu. How legitimate that claim is I couldn’t say, but a friendly descendant of the Liao clan let me snoop around inside without paying the nominal entrance fee. The house is a true homage to the past, with family heirlooms from several generations ago left higgledy-piggledy in several evocative living quarters. One room, the caretaker explained, was traditionally where the unmarried daughter would reside. Elsewhere, there was an outmoded radio set, an abacus, and some old textiles hung up as if ready to wear. Out back I found rusty Mao-era bicycles, and upstairs there was a fantastic poster illustrating move-by-move martial arts poses.

Overlooking Guilin City from its central hill, the Solitary Beauty Peak.

Back in a dry, if sunless Guilin City, with an assemblage of clouds casting uncertainty over any outdoor activities I had planned, sightseeing remained the order of the day. The remnants of the old city walls and the poetic epigraphs carved into notable rocks were all of Song provenance, I learned, but the city’s principle attraction, the Jinjiang Prince’s Mansion, was a classically designed Ming dynasty palace.

My first impression was one of awe, a reaction that Ming architecture, with its fixation on symmetry and scale, was designed to evoke. But as I explored further, a sense of melancholy set in. The 14th-century complex originally served an “inner city” where rulers lived in decadent splendor hidden away from the everyday folk. After the Ming fell to the Qing dynasty, the palace became a regional examination center. I took a tour of the tiny cubicles where aspiring young bureaucrats would sit through notorious Confucian civil-service examinations. Many died of dehydration during the course of these rigorous tests, which rewarded conformity and compliance.

At the rear of the palace grounds looms a steep karst pinnacle called Duxiu Feng, or Solitary Beauty Peak. It’s an apt name, as it stands alone like an abandoned stone pagoda. The local tourist board’s marketing slogan “Guilin’s scenery is the best under heaven” was lifted from Song poet Wang Zheng Gong’s ode to this peak, and a 15-minute hike to the top gave credence to his claim. In the pavilion at the summit, one gets an unrivalled vista of the city and its surrounds. From here, my eyes scanned apartment buildings wedged between limestone crags stretching all the way to the horizon, where the city met a somber heaven still threatening to rain. A few lines of Shakespeare, a contemporary of the Ming, ran through my mind: “Not marble, nor the gilded monuments of princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme.” Then a few drops of rain hit my face, and it was time to head back down to earth.

Tourist boats on the Li River near Yangshuo.

THE DETAILS

Getting There
Guilin’s Liangjiang International Airport receives flights from Kuala Lumpur (AirAsia), Hong Kong (Cathay Dragon), and Bangkok (China Southern Airlines, via Nanning).

When to Go
Summertime in Guilin is hot, wet, and the height of the tourist season; spring or autumn are better bets for a visit.

Where to Stay
Secret Garden Boutique Hotel
Jiuxian Village, Baisha, Yangshuo County; 86-773/877-1932; doubles from US$76.

Club Med Guilin
All-inclusive accommodation surrounded by a 46-hectare sculpture park, in the countryside halfway between Guilin City and Yangshou.
Yuzi Paradise, Dabu Yanshan District; 86-773/225-5000; from US$500 per person.

Shangri-La Guilin
Dependable five-star service and amenities on the Li River.
111 Huan Cheng Bei Er Lu, Guilin; 86-773/269-8888; doubles from US$150.

This article originally appeared in the April/May 2016 print issue of DestinAsian magazine (“Magic Mountains”).

Finding Magic Amid Guilin’s Mountains