Check out Xingping Ancient Town, the iconic location featured on the 20 RMB banknote!

One of the must-do activities when visiting Yangshuo is heading to Xingping Ancient Town to see the famous 20 RMB banknote background! We dedicated a morning to exploring Xingping Ancient Town, making it another cycling day.

【Transportation】
I took a taxi from my hotel in the Ten-Mile Gallery area to Xingping Ancient Town, which took about 40 minutes and cost around 💰50 RMB. If you're coming from Yangshuo Station, the journey is much quicker—only about 10 minutes. You can either take a public bus or a taxi from the station, as it's relatively close.

【Attractions】
Xingping Ancient Town boasts over 1,700 years of history and is home to many ancient streets, bridges, opera stages, and temples. The town itself is not very large, but the main attraction—the location featured on the back of the 20 RMB banknote—is not within the main streets of the town. You need to head further out to the natural scenic area. To reach it, we rented an electric bike for the day, as walking would have been too far.

Our ultimate destination was the Nine-Horse Fresco Hill Viewing Platform. Following the navigation, we passed several scenic spots along the way, all of which were convenient for stopping to enjoy the views and take photos:
1⃣️ The famous cormorant fisherman photo spot: You can pay to take photos on a bamboo raft or simply take pictures from the shore—the scenery is stunning.
2⃣️ The 20 RMB banknote background viewing platform: There are several access points along the way; just pick one with fewer people.
3⃣️ Yellow Cloth Reflection: This is said to be caused by yellow sand sediment at the riverbed, resembling a large yellow cloth spread across the river.
4⃣️ Nine-Horse Fresco Hill Viewing Platform: This spot is quite far, requiring about 20 minutes of driving through village roads. Due to its distance, it’s less crowded.

After cycling back to the town, we strolled around the ancient town area, which features several crisscrossing ancient streets and various historical buildings.

【Food】
The town has many local specialty restaurants, with signature dishes including bamboo chicken, beer fish, snail noodles, and Guilin rice noodles. We chose a popular restaurant called Zui Jiang Yuan, where we tried the local specialty bamboo chicken. It was quite delicious! The chicken was tender and juicy, and the soup was very flavorful.

After finishing our meal, we took a taxi from the town entrance directly to Yangshuo Station. The ride took only about 10 minutes and cost around 10 RMB, marking the start of our next adventure!

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Xingping Ancient Town
📍 No. 146, New Street, Xingping Town, Yangshuo County, Guilin City, Guangxi Province