Yangshuo

Overview

Yangshuo is a small county town on the Li River and the easiest base in China for getting out among karst peaks by bicycle, bamboo raft or climbing rope. The county seat was incorporated in 590 CE under Emperor Wen of Sui, when it amounted to a street five metres wide and 200 metres long; that street is now West Street, and in 2023 it received more than 21.1 million visitors. The town itself is a few streets of bars, hostels and souvenir stalls between the river and the bus station. Everything you came for is outside it.

The scenery is the reason. The Li River drops from 141 metres at Guilin to 103 metres at Yangshuo through a corridor of limestone towers, and that stretch of river is the landscape printed on the fifth-series 20-yuan note. West of town the Yulong River runs 35 km through rice paddies and orchard villages with no motorised boats on it at all, only bamboo rafts and a riverside cycling track. Around both rivers are more than 300 bolted climbing routes from grade 5.6 to 5.13, which is why the town has had a resident climbing crowd for decades.

Tourism here is old by Chinese standards. Domestic visitors were already common in the 1970s, the government then opened the county to Europeans and Americans, and by the 1990s nearly every shop on West Street was run by a foreigner. That era has ended. Most resident foreigners left during the Covid years and most of the foreign-run cafes and bars closed with them; Yangshuo is now overwhelmingly a domestic destination, with English signage that outlasted the English speakers.

Plan on three nights minimum: one to arrive and walk West Street once, one full day on the Yulong River by bike and raft, one for Xingping and the Li River. Climbers and people who want to learn tai chi or cook beer fish stay for weeks. The trade-off is that Yangshuo has a reputation as the worst town in China for touts, two-tier pricing and overcharging, and it earns it in the centre. Ten minutes out on a bike, none of that applies.

Neighbourhoods

Yangshuo is one small town and a ring of villages. The tourist core is laid out like a ladder: two long streets climbing from the river, short cross-streets as rungs, a creek down the middle.

West Street and Diecui Lu

West Street is the left-hand upright of the ladder seen from the river and the older tourist street; Diecui Lu is the right-hand one. Between them, Guihua Lu follows the creek and has the prettiest bars and restaurants in town on balconies above the water, though it has been heavily rebuilt. Businesses here move so often that many do not bother posting an address; if a place is not where you expect it, it has probably relocated rather than closed.

The riverfront

At the foot of the ladder, the open area by the Li is vendors on handcarts and a row of riverside hotels; the boat pier and the Landscape Garden with Green Lotus Peak are along Binjiang Road to the south. Calmer than West Street in the evening, and the best position if you want a balcony over the water.

Pantao Lu and the bus station

Across the top of the ladder runs Pantao Lu, a main road of hotels, banks and the post office. The main bus station is at its corner with Diecui Lu, and the intersection becomes a large open-air dining area at night with dozens of restaurants and hundreds of diners, none of them expecting foreigners: no English menus, no Western dishes. Convenient for early buses and the cheapest hotel beds; nothing to look at.

Shibanqiao

Follow the Li upstream (north) from West Street for about 1.5 km and you reach Shibanqiao, a village with a countryside hostel, a couple of tai chi schools and riverside terraces, fifteen minutes’ walk from the bars. The nearest thing to a quiet village that you can still walk home from.

The Yulong villages

Chaolong, 4 km from town and 15 minutes by bike, and Aishanmen, 5 km out and ¥30 by taxi, are the two villages closest to the Yulong River with guesthouses in converted farmhouses; Moon Hill Village, 8 km south on the Gaotian bus, and Fenglou behind Moon Hill on the Jinbao River have the same set-up with a climbing crowd. Rice paddies, pomelo orchards, water buffalo, and the cycling track at the end of the lane.

Xingping

The alternative base. Not as clean or developed as Yangshuo, but with intact old buildings, direct access to the best stretch of the Li, and a town you can cross on foot in fifteen minutes. Stay here if the river matters more to you than the bars, and note that the high-speed station called Yangshuo is next door.

See & do

Yangshuo’s sights are spread across the county rather than the town, and most of them are landscapes you move through rather than tickets you buy. The town’s own peaks and parks fill an afternoon. Everything else is a half-day or full-day excursion by bike, raft, bus or boat.

In town

West Street (Xijie) is the older of the two parallel tourist streets that run up from the river, and the real centre of things; Diecui Lu is the other, and Guihua Lu runs between them along a small creek with bars and restaurants on balconies over the water.

Green Lotus Peak (Bilian Feng) is the karst tower at the riverside end of town. It sits inside the Yangshuo Cultural Relics Landscape Garden at 2 Binjiang Road, open 08:30 to 17:00, ¥22, and the climb gives the only panorama of town, river and countryside you can get without transport. Yangshuo Park at 36 Diecui Road is free, open all day, and is where the town plays cards.

The Yulong River

The Yulong is a shallow tributary of the Li, about 5 metres deep at most and 25 metres across, roughly 7 km south of town, and it has no motor traffic: rafts punt downstream past weirs the villagers built every kilometre or so for their animals to cross. Raft trips start from the 400-year-old stone Yulong Bridge (Yulong Qiao) or from a series of wharves downstream; the length depends on where you board, roughly 35 minutes from Shui’e di Wharf, 80 minutes from Jima Wharf and 90 minutes from Jinlong Bridge Wharf, with prices scaled to match.

Cycling the valley is the other half of the day. The track runs beside the river through villages including Litang, Chaolong, Yima and Gaotian, past stone bridges such as Yulong Qiao and Fuli Qiao, and it is easy to get lost on it; a local guide or a good map is worth having the first time. In the dry season, November to March, you can walk across some of the weirs; otherwise locals will ferry you over for about ¥10 a head.

Moon Hill and the road south

Moon Hill is a 380-metre karst peak about 8 km south of town with a hole through its crest, all that remains of a cave roof; the arch is around 50 metres high and about 1,000 steps and 20 minutes up from the road. Entry has been ¥15, but Wikivoyage recorded it as temporarily closed in May 2025, so check before you cycle out. On the same road the Big Banyan Tree park (¥20) has a banyan said to be 1,400 years old, and Assembling Dragon Cave, 6 km south of town, is a neon-lit show cave between the two. Silver Cave, 18 km from Yangshuo in neighbouring Lipu County, is the big one: three layers running through 12 hills.

Xingping and the 20-yuan view

Xingping is an old river town about 27 km upstream, settled in 265 CE and the county’s centre until Yangshuo took over in 590. The scene on the ¥20 note is a ten-minute walk from the waterfront and free; if a local points at your money, that is what they mean. For the view from above, the Bird’s View Pavilion is 1,159 steps up the peak at the south end of the waterfront, 220 metres above town, free, with uneven and poorly kept steps near the top.

The Yangdi to Xingping walk is the best way to see the Li without a boat: 18 to 24 km along pebble shores, villages and bamboo, 5 to 6 hours, with three raft crossings at ¥10 to ¥30 each after bargaining. The crossings do not run all day, so starting from Daqiaotou village instead of Yangdi skips two of them; a raft back to the start costs ¥300 to ¥500 one way.

Xianggong Hill is the sunrise viewpoint over the S-bend of the Li: on the west bank about 26 km from Yangshuo, opening at 05:00 from May to October and 05:30 from November to April, a 15 to 20 minute climb on stone steps to three viewing platforms. September to November gives the clearest mornings; in summer the chance of a sea of cloud is about even.

Climbing

More than 300 routes from 5.6 to 5.13 are spread over crags reachable by bike or local bus. Moon Hill has several lines graded 5.13, many of them first climbed by the American Todd Skinner in the 1990s; the other named crags include Low Mountain, Twin Gates, Baby Frog, the Egg, Bamboo Grove and Wine Bottle Cliff. Several shops in town rent gear, run beginner days and sell the Yangshuo Climbing Guide with topos; the Climbers Inn is the usual place to find a partner.

Impression Liu Sanjie

Zhang Yimou’s outdoor show opened on 20 March 2004 on the Li River just outside town, with more than 600 performers in Zhuang, Miao and Yao dress and twelve karst hills as the lit backdrop; it runs 70 minutes in seven scenes. Performances are nightly from 20:00 to 21:10, closed for maintenance in January or February; face value for the cheapest seat is ¥188 and agents sell it for about ¥150. It only sells out at the height of summer. Grand rather than gripping, but the setting is the point.

Half a dozen tai chi schools in and around town take students for a day or a year, several with English-speaking masters.

Food & drink

Beer fish (pijiu yu) is the dish: carp or catfish cooked in a beer sauce, priced by the jin (500 g) at usually ¥20 to ¥50 per jin depending on species. A two-jin fish with three or four other dishes feeds three or four people; maogu fish has the fewest bones. Every second restaurant in the centre sells it. The versions cooked for a Chinese-language room, at the open-air dining area by the bus station or in the villages, are the ones to have.

Breakfast is Guilin rice noodles, the regional staple since the Qin dynasty by the legend that a cook invented them for Qin troops who could not stomach the local food; the Guilin version comes with horse meat, which you can decline. A bowl costs around ¥3 to ¥10 at any counter. The other thing to buy on the street is a pomelo (sha tian you), grown locally, sweet and cheap at ¥1 to ¥2; ask the seller to pick one with a small top and cut it for you.

The night market used to sit by the bus station and has moved to the markets across the road and down towards Guihua Lu. The range is wide: oysters, mussels, rabbit, duck, shrimp, frog, the local mud snails, and also dog and rat. Prices are low for Yangshuo but higher than elsewhere in China, and you haggle. The fresh market shows caged dogs waiting for slaughter, which is worth knowing before you wander in.

Chinese restaurants outside West Street rarely have English menus or English-speaking staff, and are cheaper for it. Guilin cooking is a mix of Cantonese and Zhuang, heavy on chilli and snacks; kitchens here assume Westerners cannot take heat and will tone it down no matter how you insist. There is a halal Chinese Muslim restaurant facing the bus station entrance for noodle and rice dishes, and Northeastern dumpling places off West Street selling twelve for ¥12 to ¥15.

Western food is the town’s other tradition, and now mostly a domestic-tourist version of it. Expect ¥15 to ¥40 for a coffee, ¥40 for a pizza, ¥30 for a slice of cake, burgers, shepherd’s pie and Western breakfasts of variable authenticity; the general rule that the best Chinese kitchens do not serve Western food holds, though a few places in Yangshuo manage both.

If you want to cook it yourself, the cooking school runs single and multi-day classes with two menus depending on the day: beer fish, stuffed pumpkin flowers, egg-wrapped dumplings and stir-fried pork, with a market tour and hotel pick-up included.

Nightlife

West Street is loud: every bar on it runs the sound system at full volume until around 02:00, and the clubs near the bus terminal sometimes stay open to 05:00 or 06:00 and other nights shut by midnight, changing hours day to day. Entrance fees are rare, but on busy nights there may be a minimum spend per table, and the cheapest beer in a club starts around ¥25.

Beer pricing tells you who a bar is for. A 700 ml bottle of Liquan, the Guilin lager, costs ¥8 to ¥10 in a bar set up for Westerners; a bar aimed at Chinese tour groups charges at least ¥20 for a 350 ml bottle, and many sell a bottle of Jack and Coke for ¥50. The local drink is Guilin Three-flower wine, and osmanthus wine is sold from jugs in Xingping for very little.

The quieter bars are the ones on Guihua Lu’s creek balconies and the rooftop places in the alleys off West Street, which trade on the view of the lit karst rather than the volume. Most of the foreign-run bars that gave the town its 1990s and 2000s reputation had closed by 2023, so do not plan an evening around a name from an old guidebook.

The evening that most visitors actually book is the Impression Liu Sanjie show on the river, covered above under See and do. The other is a cormorant fishing boat trip, arranged by any tour desk. After 01:00 the streets are dark enough to want a torch.

When to go

Yangshuo has a humid subtropical climate: 1,612 mm of rain a year, most of it between March and August, and summers that have reached 39.9°C. Every activity worth doing here depends on weather, so the calendar matters more than in a city.

March to May

Highs climb from 18.7°C in March to 28.8°C in May, but this is the start of the wet season: 131 mm in March, 192 mm in April and 265 mm in May, with rain on 17 or 18 days a month. Green, warm and often grey. Domestic holiday crowds spike over Qingming in early April and Labour Day at the start of May.

June to August

June is the wettest month at 303 mm and July and August the hottest, with average highs of 33.4°C and 33.5°C and humidity in the 80s. Yulong rafting is at its most popular in summer and its most dangerous after storms, when the river runs brown. Swimming in the Li from the docks upstream of the centre is the local answer to the heat; tour boats from Guilin are a hazard mid-river, and the water is mostly boat-free before 12:00 and after 15:00.

September to November

The best window. Rain drops to 63 mm in September and 59 mm in October, sunshine stays high, and highs ease from 31.5°C to 22°C by November. Clear mornings make it the season for Xianggong Hill. The exception is the National Day week from 1 October, when hotel prices surge and the whole of China is on West Street.

December to February

Cool and dry: January averages 13.1°C by day and 6.6°C at night, with a record low of -2.1°C in December and a snow day or two some years. Low water means the Guilin cruise boats often start halfway down the river, with a bus for the first part. The Impression show closes for maintenance in January or February, and Chinese New Year brings the year’s other price surge. Many guesthouses have no heating; ask.

Getting there

Yangshuo has no airport and the railway station that carries its name is in another town. Almost everyone comes through Guilin.

From Guilin by bus

Government express buses leave the Guilin bus terminal about every 20 minutes and take around 1½ hours for ¥22, ticketed at the counter inside. Private minibuses from the square in front of Guilin railway station charge ¥18 for 80 to 90 minutes, wait until full, stop for passengers en route and have a record of scamming tourists; ignore the touts who board to sell you a dearer ticket. Guilin’s main terminal has moved at least once (Wikivoyage reports services shifting to a new South station 10 km out), so confirm the departure point with your hotel.

Buses arrive at one of two stations in Yangshuo. The North station handles Guilin, Guilin airport, Yangdi and Nanning; the South station handles Xingping, Gongcheng, Jinbao and Gaotian.

By boat

The Li River cruise runs 83 km from Guilin to Yangshuo, taking 3½ to 4 hours from Zhujiang Pier to the Longtoushan pier at the foot of West Street, lunch included: from about ¥300 on a 3-star boat and ¥600 upwards on a 4-star one. Joining a Chinese tour group can bring it down to around ¥100. Ask which boat you will be on and see a photo first, as standards vary, and do not book through the agents who approach you at Guilin station.

By air

Guilin Liangjiang International Airport (KWL) has several daily flights from Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen and a daily Air Asia service from Kuala Lumpur; flying from Shenzhen is cheaper than from Hong Kong because it counts as domestic. The non-stop airport shuttle to Yangshuo’s North bus station takes about 90 minutes, ¥50, with departures at 09:30, 11:00, 12:30, 14:00, 15:30, 16:30, 18:00, 20:00 and 22:30; tickets are sold near the arrivals exit. A taxi is ¥260 to ¥400 depending on the car, plus ¥30 in tolls if you take the G65 expressway, which saves half an hour; have your hotel book it rather than taking a waiting driver.

By train

Yangshuo railway station is on the Guiyang to Guangzhou high-speed line, which opened on 26 December 2014 and cut the end-to-end journey from 20 hours to 4; the station sits at km 478, between Guilin West and Gongcheng. It is in Xingping, about 36 km northeast of Yangshuo town; shuttle buses connect it with the centre, and a local bus outside the station reaches Xingping for ¥5. From Shenzhen, Gongcheng station is the other option at about 3 hours, then a 10-minute city bus to Gongcheng bus station and 40 minutes on to Yangshuo.

Long-distance buses

Sleeper buses run direct from Shenzhen, Zhuhai and Guangzhou for ¥100 to ¥250, around 10 hours from the Shenzhen border, and drop you in town a ten-minute walk from West Street rather than at a station. Nanning has three buses a day for ¥120, all in the morning.

Getting around

The town takes fifteen minutes to cross on foot, and an electric minibus network of five routes covers most of it for ¥1 a ride, including the hop between the main (west) and South bus stations. Everything else is a bike, a scooter, a minibus or a negotiated ride.

Bicycles

Rental places cluster around West Street at ¥20 to ¥50 a day, ¥50 for a Trek, the best you will find; check brakes and gears before leaving, because most bikes are badly maintained. A helmet costs extra where offered. The popular one-way trick is to take a boat upriver with the bike aboard and cycle back.

Scooters and motorbikes

Electric scooters need no licence, get about 40 km on a charge and cost around ¥100 a day from the same shops, mostly at the top of West Street. Petrol motorbikes are illegal to ride without a Chinese licence; police tend to ignore scooters but may stop a motorbike, and rentals often come with an empty tank.

Minibuses to the countryside

From the bus terminal, minibuses (xiao mianbao, “little bread loaves”) run to Gaotian for Moon Hill and the Big Banyan every 15 minutes at ¥3 each way, to Jinbao via Baisha for Yulong Bridge, to Shazhi for Fuli village, and to Xingping (45 minutes, quoted at ¥5.5 and more recently ¥10) and Yangdi (90 minutes, ¥8). The bigger blue bus to Puyi every half hour serves the Egg and White Mountain crags; the last pick-up for climbers there is 18:30. Pay when you get off and carry small notes.

Taxis and motorbike taxis

Taxis are scarce because the government caps their number, and none will use a meter; the opening price for a ride within town is ¥25 to ¥30 and ¥10 is achievable after bargaining. Motorbike taxis wait on street corners and take you anywhere in town for ¥8 to ¥15; three-wheelers ask at least ¥35 for a trip 5 km out. Agree every price before you sit down. Hotels outside town often run free or cheap shuttles, which spares the haggling.

Guides

A guide costs about ¥100 a person a day; some are licensed and examined, some are street-smart freelancers, and either kind may steer you into commission-paying shops. A farmer woman hired for ¥100 a day to lead you round the local paths is the better deal, and might include lunch at her house.

Where to stay

Beds run from about ¥40 a night in a dorm to US$100 for a luxury bungalow, and the asking price on the lobby sign bears little relation to what you will pay off-season, when rates are very negotiable. Hotel touts work the bus station; walk past them. Carry your hotel’s name and street written in Chinese, because even locals mishear place names.

The centre

Hostels and budget hotels cluster on West Street, Xianqian Jie, Pantao Lu opposite the park and the alleys off Diecui Lu, with dorms from ¥25 to ¥40 and off-season twins for ¥50 to ¥120. The climbers’ hostel has moved away from West Street to a quieter alley near the local market, which tells you what West Street is like at night. Mid-range boutique rooms along the Guihua Lu creek go for ¥100 to ¥300, and the riverfront hotels on Binjiang Road around ¥200 for a river view.

The countryside

The interesting places are in the villages. Restored farmhouses around courtyards in Chaolong (rooms from ¥120, a whole house ¥350) and Aishanmen (¥120 to ¥250, ¥30 by taxi to town) were the original countryside guesthouses; newer riverside properties on the Yulong run ¥250 to ¥720 for balcony suites with karst views, and a 29-room retreat on the Yulong banks 7 km from West Street has been the long-time expat favourite. Moon Hill Village, 15 minutes out on the Gaotian bus, has a boutique inn in a mud-brick farmhouse and cheaper family places at around ¥150 with views of the arch.

Xingping

Dorm beds from ¥30 at the hostel on Rongtan Street, doubles with river or mountain views for more, plus a guesthouse across the river in Dahebei with vegetables from its own garden and a small hotel under the peak by the port. Accommodation regulation is strictly enforced, so hotel-related tourist traps are essentially absent; the only thing to watch is the price surge over National Day and Chinese New Year.

Practical info

Country-wide matters (visas, payment apps, the VPN question, SIM cards) are in the China guide. What follows is specific to Yangshuo.

Money and post

The Bank of China, Agricultural Bank and ICBC all have branches on West Street, with more on Pantao Lu including the China Postal Bank near the fresh markets; some branches have no ATM and not all ATMs take foreign cards, so try more than one. The post office is on Pantao Lu opposite the top of West Street, open 08:00 to 21:00, and nearly every hotel, bar and cafe has free wi-fi for customers.

Two prices

Unlike most of China, where groceries are sold at a standard price, Yangshuo runs a two-price system: one for local Chinese, another for everyone else, and West Street clothing and souvenirs can be marked up 100 to 500 per cent. Almost everything on sale here (silk, pashminas, scroll paintings) is available cheaper elsewhere in China. Compare first, name your own price, and walk away; sellers often follow with a better offer.

Checkpoints and theft

On the bike route from town to the Yulong River, villagers in Longtan Village have been known to set up a checkpoint demanding ¥20 to pass, and climbers have met the same at some crags. Pickpocketing in town is now rare thanks to cameras in the tourist areas, but theft from swimmers at the Secret Beach (Shuang Tan) upstream is close to a daily occurrence, so take nothing you would miss. Currents in the Li are strong in places; swim where locals swim and not in the boat lane.

Police and traffic

A few Yangshuo officers deal almost exclusively with foreigners, speak very good English and have a record of tracking down thieves and returning property. There is a police box at the top of West Street and the main station on Fuqian Xiang. Traffic rules are loosely observed: do not expect a driver to stop at a green crossing signal, and motorbikes use pedestrian streets in any direction. If you are hit, the driver is liable for your medical costs and the negotiation happens at the police station.

Onward tickets

Because of its backpacker history, Yangshuo has agencies selling flights, sleeper buses to Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Kunming, train tickets out of Guilin, and even through tickets to Hanoi with a Vietnamese visa arranged in two days. The bus to the Shenzhen border takes about 10 hours for ¥180 to ¥200, then another hour to the crossing.