Vignettes of the World
I did not get to try the beer fish in Huangyao and so I was very keen to try it in Yangshuo. Indeed, when I just arrived in Yangshuo, I saw all these restaurants claiming to be beer fish specialists. That would be my dinner …
I was only spending one day in Yangshuo and by the afternoon I had decided to take it easy. The boat tour of Lijiang River would be departing soon at 3pm on Binjiang Road, so I hurried to the pier. This 1.5-hour boat ride will …
My first impression of Yangshuo was that it was a vast expanse of a no-man’s land.
Bright and early at 8:20 am I was at the Qianxing Square of Huangyao Ancient Town and ready to flag down the only bus of the day that would take me to Yangshuo. And surely it did come on time. There was no incident, I got on the bus and about 1.5 hours later, I arrived at Yangshuo.
Photo: Huangyao’s Qianxing Square in the morning.
Now here comes the problem. No one had ever told me that the bus would drop me off at the edge of Yangshuo County, not Yangshuo city itself. When I was dropped off, I found myself in the middle of nowhere, right at the edge of the county. I checked my map app and learned that to walk to Yangshuo city, where I would be staying and touring, it would take 2.5 hours.
Photo: Being dropped off in a no-man’s land at the edge of Yangshuo county.
Walking was simply not an option then. I did not have a China mobile number so I was unable to use any app to call a car. A lady stationed right by the toll booths told me that if I just walked about ten minutes, I would arrive at a main road. That is where I could flag down a city-bound bus to get to Yangshuo.
As instructed, I went toward the main road and did see some buses passing by. They said they were heading to Yangshuo city proper. But there was no bus stop as far as I could see. I just kind of stood there on the road, hoping for the next bus. Perhaps I was indeed looking lost. Soon enough, a car stopped by, the lady driver told me to get in the car, “where are you heading?”
I didn’t think twice and went into the car. I told her I was going to Yangshuo old town. She charged me 10 yuan for the ride.
I still had to walk a good 15 minutes before arriving at my hostel. In this walk I was seeing what I imagined Yangshuo to be—vibrant, populated with shops—but maybe just a tad more commercialized than I expected.
I was staying at Wangjianglou (Riverview Hotel). I was very excited as I went into the hotel. There was a restaurant downstairs and it was very crowded. I also passed by a really nice café.
The room also turned out to be incredibly comfortable with a wonderful view. From the room I was actually just looking over at the Xu Beihong Former Residence, of which I would spend about 15 minutes touring.
I did not know what to do for lunch so I just walked around the neighborhood a little. I found Jimo Zhutong Fan (Lonely Bamboo Rice). The bamboo rice is served piping hot on a bamboo tube. It is also a specialty of Guilin. The rice is supposed to cook inside the bamboo, as such carrying with it the fragrance of bamboo. I ordered a spicy beef rice and it turned out to be very good. Despite the beef looking a bit dry, it is crispy and tasty. The rice also came with a crunch because it was cooked in the bamboo on open fire.
Xu Beihong is a famous artist in China. This old structure was built during the late Qing dynasty and early Republican period. In 1936, this residence was bought for the specific purpose of giving home to Xu Beihong, who just took up an appointment here in Guangxi. He would live in Yangshuo between 1936 and 1942.
During this time, he had made some iconic paintings, as the beautiful scenery here had inspired him so. Such titles included Spring Rain in Lijiang River, The Crowing Cock in the Storm, and Tweeting Birds in the Morning, Headwind, Qing’s Ferry etc.
It was a bit disappointing that the exhibits had not even included a replica of his works. Famous as he was, I had not known much about him and his art. Suffice to say, he was well known for his ink and landscape paintings. He was also very well known for painting Chinese landscapes in oil paintings, showing his skills in western painting techniques.
The touring is relatively simple there. There were some minimal exhibits explaining Xu Beihong’s life. There was also a half-body bust in his image in the backyard.
I wandered in the neighborhood, and found myself at the riverside. As of that point in the afternoon, there was no plan as to what I would do in Yangshuo. I learned that the only boat tour on Lijiang for the day would depart at 3pm (there were two sessions in a day), and missing that, I would have to wait till the next morning session at 11am. I signed up for the 1.5 hour boat tour right away.
I arrived at Huangyao in the late afternoon and I had not had any food since a very early breakfast. I decided to have a bowl of Guilin Mifen (rice noodles) before I did more touring of the ancient town. Photo: The West Gate of …
A leisurely walk within the ancient town of Huangyao will take some three hours or so. I began walking into the ancient town from Qianxing Square and came across the main street with all kinds of vendors and restaurants. The storefronts were all well-kept and …
At the Qianxing Square drop-off point I first came across the Ancient Stage. Built in the third year of the Jiaqing reign in Ming dynasty (1524), the Ancient Stage was the only building in Huangyao that served the purpose of cultural performances. When it was running, the dramatic works of Guangxi Opera and Huadiao featured prominently in its programs.
In terms of architecture, the Ancient Stage is a “single-eave, eight-pillar pavilion-type stage with gable-and hip-roof.” The stage consists of a the front stage and a rear wing room.
There is an entrance fee to enter the Huangyao Ancient Town. At the Tourist Information Center in Qianxing Guangchang (the Qianxing Square), I paid for my entrance fee. It was RMB 88 yuan.
There are guards at every gate of the ancient town checking your tickets. This is how it works: at the first entry you will present your purchased tickets. The guard will then scan your face. Once your face has been scanned, all entries into the ancient town will be verified with your face image. You simply place your face before the scanner and you will be admitted.
When I was on the coach to Huangyao, the lady that oversaw the bus told us that if you could wait till 5:30pm before going into Huangyao, then there is no need to pay the entrance fee because all the guards will be off duty then. I do not recommend this, as it takes a few hours to tour the ancient town and you do want to be able to take some pictures during the daylight hours. The commercial areas of the town are lit during the night hours, they are a different kind of beauty. But you would want to snap some good shots of the scenic spots, which are best presented with natural lighting. Even during the early dusk, when I started touring the ancient town, the scenic spots were wonderful.
Once arriving in Huangyao, I hurried up and checked in to my hostel for the night. I was staying at the Dayuan Culture Theme Hotel (Mojia Dayuan, meaning the mansion of the Mo’s). It lies on the southern edge of the ancient town. At this location, the three sub-streams of the Yao river converge.
The Dayuan Culture Theme Hotel is an antique building itself. Originally the building belonged to the Mo clan. In the old times, the villagers referred to it as Xianshan Study. During the times of New China, the government had used the building as a warehouse storage for food.
Photo: The Xianshan Ancestral Hall within the Dayuan Culture Theme Hotel. The Mo’s Mansion had once been known as Xianshan Study.
The house was built in the traditional style of siheyuan, which was a very popular building format, particularly in Beijing, for the thousands of years. Buildings are built on all four sides of a courtyard. This format was usually built to give home to large multigenerational households.
The building’s foundation was made of bluestones (limestones) and it took five years just to lay the foundation. In 2008, the government handed this building back to the Mo’s. In 2015, after careful restoration efforts, which included the fitting of materials that mimic an “aged look,” the hotel opened its doors to visitors.
I had a free upgrade to a larger room with a balcony, from which I saw a peak cluster afar. I was exceedingly thankful for that.
Dusk was befalling soon and so I hurried out to the ancient town. I would only have time that evening and very early the next morning in Huangyao, because the only bus to Yangshuo would depart at 8:40 am the next day.
On my way to the Dayuan Culture Theme Hotel, there were some other very beautiful historical monuments, namely the Sima Mansion and the Shouwang Tower.
The Sima Mansion is a very special building in Huangyao as well, it being a residence for a government official. It belonged to Mo Airan, who was a Qing dynasty official and known as Sima Mo. The building had the layout of three bays and three courtards. Its raised platform bore the good will for a government official, meaning “with each step the official rank rises up.”
Lying next to the Yao River is the Shouwang Tower. It is the gatehouse to enter and exit Huangyao on the east. “The gatehouse adopts the square plane structure, with complete facilities, such as watching windows, loopholes and fences.” There used to be guards stationing here as a security measure.
Sources
Descriptions on site at the Huangyao Ancient Town.
I have long wanted to visit the Liu Man Shek Tong Ancestral Hall in Sheung Shui because it is quite close to home. On this sunny spring day I finally went to learn about the Lius and their history at the beautiful, near-majestic Liu Man …
The day was bright with a perfect azure sky. I wanted to do an interesting but easy walk so I visited the Old Quarry of Lei Yue Mun. The History of Lei Yue Mun as a Strategic Location Photo: A Panorama of the Lei Yue …
I love visiting ancient towns in China. In this blog I have covered the Gankeng Ancient Hakka Townlet and the Dapeng Fortress in Shenzhen. Apparently, many tourists find ancient towns to be very attractive tourist sites, and China’s local governments and cultural heritage developers have caught on with this trend. A whole lot of ancient villages and towns are revitalized for the purpose of tourism, and so far I find these efforts to be laudable.
I found online sources describing Huangyao to be “one of the most low-key ancient cities in China.” I was intrigued. Certainly, the photographs show the many features of old towns for which I have a soft spot. The stone laid streets, mud-covered brick houses, old temples and maybe a stream or two running through the village — a poetic scenery murmuring an enduring pride from centuries of hardships and survival. I was determined to go.
Perhaps exactly because of its relative low profile in the tourism scene, Huangyao was not easy to get to. It being the first leg of my journey in Guilin, Huangyao presented the most difficulty out of the three ancient cities in this trip. The closest High Speed Rail (HSR) station is Hezhou.
From the Hezhou station I followed the way for “bus station” and walked a good 20 minutes before I arrived at the long haul bus station quite some ways from the train station. Follow signs, they are clear.
Once arriving at the bus station in Hezhou, I saw the bus to Huangyao. I boarded the bus and with this began the most frustrating part out of this whole trip. The bus driver told me that it would take 1.5 hours before getting to Huangyao, but 2 hours later, we were still winding through the provincial areas and not getting to the ancient town.
Eventually, the big coach dropped us off at an unknown spot in the backstretches of Hezhou and we then headed over to a smaller (and therefore slightly faster) car to finally arrive at Huangyao. The whole journey took me 2.5 hours.
Looking out the window while I was on the train, I noticed how the scenery changed as the train approached the Guangxi Province. Ranges after ranges of distinct mountains appear afar hugging all kinds of human settlements—farms, towns, cities—as we moved into the Guilin area. One cannot miss this change of character in the scenery, as these mountains, or hills, are distinctly Guilin. Each of these hills stand alone with its own clear contour, and they appear to be rolling and rolling endlessly, one distinct hill after another, as the speed train proceeds. This is described as “karst peak clusters.”
Photo: View at a Gas Station in Hezhou
The scenery indicates a way of life that is different from what I am accustomed to in Hong Kong, which is also enveloped by mountains, but their presence much less pronounced. Living in Guilin, one comes face to face with the magnificence of Guilin’s nature. As one develops the appreciation for hovering mountains all around, a human being feels like being dwarfed, infinitely and intimately so. One must also live with, and get around, the myriad waterways that branch out of the Lijiang (Li River). Here is a river, there is a river, with them comes the many bridges that one must cross — and they are all part of the Li River waterway.
Throughout the whole bus ride in Hezhou I kept thinking to myself that time is a cheap commodity in this part of China. The driver told me that the ride took 1.5 hours. An hour, an hour and a half, two hours… I was still not making it to Huangyao. The big bus was making its rounds all through Hezhou. As it did so, I could not help but to note some observations.
The views outside seems to confirm my grumbles about time being cheap there. Hezhou strikes me as a part of China that was left behind and forgotten in the nation’s stellar record of development. It was worlds apart from the vibrance and sophistication of China’s big cities like Beijing, Shanghai or even Nanjing. At the same time there were not the primitive, raw and untouched landscapes that make one’s heart drop, like in Xinjiang or Tibet. Other than the Guilin mountains being its saving grace, Hezhou was simply provincial, with a lot of vacant big buildings. Life seemed to go slowly and listlessly, and I sensed a hollowness and powerlessness in the air. On an afternoon of a weekday many shops were closed.
Despite the abundance of the Pearl River waterways the town was filled with billows of dusts, the dirt that got kicked up by vehicles seemingly running on diesel and belonging to a different era in time. People dressed in humble clothing. Although they looked a whole lot better off than the peasants that I saw some two decades ago in my China trips, their appearance was still quite a bit humbler than the well-dressed city-traveling crowd that I met on the train.
Perhaps it would be fair for me to call the sights of Hezhou a little desperate.
The lady that oversaw the bus ride was dropping off packages at different locations, causing delays. And one could only imagine how people in this part of China tried to make a business out of every ounce of their resources.
Finally at a little before 4pm I was dropped off at the Qianxing Square in Huangyao. This bus ride took me a total of 2.5 hours. I came to the first beautiful sight of the day, the Ancient Stage of Huangyao. At this sight a mixed emotion welled within me. I was at once sad and excited. Hezhou and Huangyao are both old but in wildly different ways. Hezhou is old in the sense that it is outdated. Huangyao is old in the sense that it is antique.
Guilin was my first trip in 2024. The trip lasted four days and three nights, and I visited the ancient towns of Huangyao, Yangshuo and Xingping. Perhaps at a long-forgotten time I have visited Guilin proper with my parents. When I was growing up, Guilin …