7 Yangshuo Hotels Among the Karst Towers

The view on the back of the twenty-yuan note is a real place. It is a bend of the Li River at Xingping, about an hour upstream from Yangshuo, and people stand at the spot holding the banknote up against the landscape to check.

What they are looking at is karst: cone-shaped limestone towers, most of them one to two hundred metres high, standing separately out of flat paddy fields. The rock was a Devonian seabed, uplifted and then dissolved by rainwater along its joints over tens of millions of years until only the hardest cores were left. It is the most developed tower karst landscape in the world, and it is why Chinese landscape painting looks the way it does — this is the scenery those painters were painting.

Guilin, Yangshuo and the river between them

Guilin is the city at the northern end, with an airport, a railway station and the hotels for anyone who wants a city. It is pleasant rather than remarkable.

Yangshuo, sixty-five kilometres south, is the small town in the middle of the best of the karst, and it is where almost everyone actually wants to be. It has grown quickly and West Street is now a busy strip of bars and shops; the villages a few kilometres out are not.

The Li River cruise between them takes four to five hours on a large boat and is the standard way to travel. The alternative is a bamboo raft on the quieter Yulong River near Yangshuo, or cycling the valley roads, both of which are better.

The Longji terraces, two hours north of Guilin, are rice terraces cut into mountainsides by the Zhuang and Yao from the thirteenth century, rising in some places from 300 to 1,100 metres.

The seven below are grouped that way.

Yangshuo

Among the karst.

Alila Yangshuo occupies a 1960s sugar mill on the Li River, kept and built around rather than demolished, with the original industrial trusses left exposed, a pool between the buildings and karst towers directly behind. It is one of the best conversions in Asia.

Banyan Tree Yangshuo sits outside Yangshuo on the Yulong River with villas among pomelo groves, a spa, and rice paddies between the buildings and the towers.

Yangshuo Mountain Retreat occupies a converted farmhouse on the Yulong with a handful of rooms, a garden and a family operation, at a fraction of the rates above.

Guilin

The city at the northern end.

Shangri-La Hotel, Guilin sits on the Li River in Guilin with gardens to the water, a pool and the most complete facilities in the city.

Lijiang Waterfall Hotel occupies a position beside a waterfall feature on the river with large rooms and a good position for the cruise departures.

Sheraton Guilin Hotel sits in central Guilin with reliable rooms and rates well below the riverside properties.

Longji

The rice terraces, two hours north.

Li-An Lodge occupies a timber lodge among the Longji terraces with a small room count, views down the valley and a walk up from the road.

What we have left off

The guest houses across Yangshuo and the Yulong valley are excluded, and there are a great many of them in converted farmhouses at very low prices. They are guest houses rather than hotels.

What to do

Take a bamboo raft on the Yulong rather than only the big Li River boat. It is shallow, quiet, poled by hand, and you pass under the towers rather than looking at them from a deck.

Cycle the Yulong valley. The roads are flat, the villages are working farms and it is the best way to spend a day here.

Go to Xingping and walk to the viewpoint for the banknote scene, ideally in early morning mist.

See the Longji terraces if you have the days, and walk between the villages rather than only riding up to the viewing platform.

Watch the cormorant fishermen if you can find the genuine article rather than the staged version — the practice is largely performance now and it is worth asking directly.

Practical notes

Guilin has an international airport with domestic and regional connections, and a high-speed rail station. Yangshuo is about ninety minutes from Guilin by road or twenty minutes from its own high-speed station.

April, May, September and October are best. Summer is hot, humid and the rainy season brings river levels high enough to affect cruises. Winter is cool, misty and atmospheric.

The karst is at its most photogenic in mist, which is most likely in spring and after rain.

Questions people actually ask

Is the twenty-yuan view real?

Yes, at a bend of the Li River at Xingping. People hold the note up to compare.

Guilin or Yangshuo?

Yangshuo for the landscape, Guilin for the airport and the city. Ninety minutes apart.

Big boat or bamboo raft?

The raft on the Yulong is quieter and closer to the rock. The Li River cruise covers more ground.

How many nights?

Four. Three around Yangshuo and one for Longji or Guilin.

If you only book one