Getting to see the countryside around Yangshuo is no problem, as the land between the hills is flat and perfect for bicycles - there's a rental shop on Xi Jie across from the Paris Café (¥5 a day, plus deposit). Various people offer excellent and inexpensive guided bike tours , too, allowing close contact with villages and locals through an interpreter; costs are subject to negotiation but ¥10 an hour seems about right. Motor-rickshaws also cruise around, destinations listed on their windshields in Chinese, but are relatively expensive and the drivers don't speak English. Most of the sights are near main roads, however, so you can always catch a long-distance bus heading in the right direction and get off where you want - a fair amount of traffic means that getting back or farther on shouldn't be a problem as long as you don't leave things too late.

In summer, a popular way to see the river is by renting an inner tube from one of the cafés and simply drifting around. Boats leave all year round from the dock at the end of Xi Jie; the ticket office here advertises morning departures upstream, and you'll also be mobbed by touts. While it's not such a good idea to travel the whole way to Guilin from Yangshuo - an ultimately tedious twelve-hour journey upstream (wrap warmly in winter) - there are plenty of shorter trips to make, and the prices here are a fraction of the cost you'd pay from the city. The thickest, most contorted collection of peaks lies between Yangshuo and the neighbouring villages of Yangdi and Langshi , about a third of the way to Guilin; people have managed to wrangle this as a six-hour return trip (coming back by bus) for as little as ¥25 per person in winter, though in the summer peak season ¥100 or more would be usual. Xingping , just a couple of hours upstream by boat, is another good target, close enough to pedal back from and also connected by minibus to Yangshuo's bus station; as is Fuli (¥40 by boat), a pretty village an hour's ride downstream from Yangshuo on the east bank, whose locals-oriented produce market (every fifth day) is the best and busiest in the area.