The bus journey between Huizhou and Shantou is somewhat surreal. As undulating hills and plains float by in the background, you pass kilometre after kilometre of unbroken, appallingly anonymous housing, built one block deep like a film set, and 1950s estates of grey rectangular buildings packed as closely as possible into stark grids. The dreary modern flats are so similar they can be distinguished only by their inhumane addresses - A10, E5 - painted on their fronts. Still, the highway is good, making for fast and furious driving, and it's not unusual to cover the 300km in a respectable four hours - even faster than the train.

SHANTOU, China sits in a well-protected marine harbour at the mouth of the stunted Rong River, where eastern Guangdong's major waterway, the Han River , disgorges into the South China Sea through a complex estuary. This strategic access to the south's mountainous interior, not to mention a useful position between Guangzhou and Xiamen in Fujian, was overlooked until Shantou was first opened to foreigners in 1858 following the post-Opium War Tianjin Treaty . The mainly British entrepreneurs who moved in called the town Swatow after the local pronounciation, followed the Han River upstream to establish Church missions, built a city in grand colonial style and, by 1900, had turned Shantou from a fishing village into a major trading port. It remained so for half a century, but the Communist takeover saw the city's interests gradually shifting towards light industries, which were greatly expanded after Shantou's 1980 elevation to one of Guangdong's Special Economic Zones. Today the old waterfront district is somewhat neglected, as a new, modern business city of over a million inhabitants expands steadily east. While incredibly crowded and noisy, the crumbling old quarter, a few nice traditional buildings and a quick trip across the harbour make Shantou a decent place to pause before continuing east into Fujian, or north to Chaozhou.