Yangshuo A lovely small town near Guilin

If you are planning to travel to Guilin, you must go and know about Yangshuo.

Yangshuo is near Guilin and like Guilin, it has incredible karst scenery and a parade of Chinese package tourists who can be spotted wearing baseball caps and following around their tour leader carring a flag.

However, it isn't your typical Chinese town. Yangshuo has a reputation as a foreigners' village in Southern China. This town feels like one of the stops on the travelers' trail, with lots of the same people you'd expect in Katmandu or Lijiang.

Many travellers use Yangshuo as a base and spend their time exploring the karst scenery and rivers, or checking out caves and local temples. Renting a bike and taking off into the countryside, with or without a guide, is one popular strategy. There is also a whole community of rock climbers enjoying hills and caves.

Others just take it easy in one of the many cafes and bars. While this certainly isn't the whole story, the town is in some ways a break from the rest of China. For this reason, it is very popular with foreigners who work in China.

Yangshuo is a small place - the town can easily be covered on foot. There is an electric minibus network consisting 5 routes covering most parts of town. RMB 1 per ride.

The main tourist area is laid out roughly like a ladder. The two main tourist streets run more-or-less parallel up from the river to end at one of the town's larger streets. There are assorted smaller streets (rungs) crossing between the two larger streets. The street (ladder vertical) on the left seen from the River is West Street (Xijie) and is the older more established tourist street, the real center of things. The other long tourist street is Diecuilu (Rd. Die Cui).

There's a small creek that runs down the center of the "ladder"; some of the prettiest bars and restaurants in town are on balconies near it. The street there is called Guiha Lu. At the "foot of the ladder" by the river is an open area with a large number of vendors hawking all sorts of tourist stuff, both from shops and from handcarts. Also a number of rather nice riverside hotels.

Across the "top of the ladder" is a major street (Pantao Lu) with many hotels. The town's main bus station is at the corner where that main street meets Die Cui Lu. The intersection has a large open area that becomes very busy at night, with dozens of restaurants and hundreds of diners. Do not expect English menus or non-Chinese dishes.

Near the top of West Street are three banks with ATMs — Bank of China, Agricultural Bank and ICBC — and there is a China Construction Bank on Die Cui Lu. Service in the Bank of China can be awful, but it has the only ATM that accepts foreign cards.

The post office is on Pantao Lu, opposite the top end of West Street. It's open from 8am until 9pm.