Guilin

The city of Guilin in Guangxi province is the entryway into China's most dreamlike scenery, the Li River meandering lazily between a karst skyline of bulbous limestone peaks to reach Yangshuo, a tourist town on the bucket lists of most visitors. The surrounding countryside lends itself to rafting, rock-climbing, and biking or hiking between bucolic villages to encounter the region's Zhuang, Dong and Yao ethnicities. Further afield, the "Dragon's Backbone" rice terraces portray the very essence of China's relationship between man and nature, with whole mountainsides cultivated into rows of undulating paddies by generations of farming families.