Yangshuo

Yangshuo is a popular tourist county and city near Guilin, Guangxi. The town is surrounded by karst mountains, winding rivers and beautiful scenery and bordered on one side by the Li River it is easily accessible by bus or by boat from nearby Guilin. In the 1980s, the town became popular with foreign backpackers, and by the late 1990s packaged tourists began arriving in greater numbers. At that time, domestic tourism represented only a small fraction of the tourists but by 2005 domestic tourists outnumbered foreign tourists by a great margin.

Today, Yangshuo is popular among tourists for its karst peaks, rivers, caves, and temples as well as its laid back cafes and bars. the town has become a resort destination for both domestic and foreign travelers and has a relatively big ex-pats community. It serves as a fantastic base camp for further exploration.

Yangshuo is now a relatively large tourist town, different from most typical Chinese towns. It is relatively air and noise pollution free, very clean and does not usually suffer from endless massive traffic chaos. Instead, it harbours wonderful restaurants and shops, an almost unlimited number of hotels and hostels, and is fairly developed by mainland Chinese standards. Yangshuo is well-known amongst travellers in Southern China, and is a major stop on the trail of many independent travellers. The main reason people stop in the town is to explore the local countryside by bike, try their hand on the world class rock-climbing sites or take a bamboo raft down the river, viewing the famous ¥20 scene in the process.

Rock climbing in Yangshuo was first put on the map by American climber Todd Skinner who visited in 1992, establishing a number of classic lines such as

"Moonwalker" which traverses the famous Moon Hill arch.