Six hours south of Jinggang Shan,
GANZHOU lies on the tropical side of the mountain ranges and is very different from the north of the province. A small port city on the Zhang River and a stop on the Kowloon-Beijing rail line, Ganzhou makes an interesting few hours' break in your journey. The
long-distance bus station is down at the southeastern corner of town on Bayi Si Dadao. Pick up a map here, then catch bus #1 to the
clock tower in the old, northern riverside quarter. From here, it's a ten-minute walk through narrow alleyways to
Bajing Park , where a
temple overlooks the river and reconstructions of the old city walls stretch for 5km along the banks. Heading back towards the bus station in a more or less direct line, you'll see the decaying colonial buildings along the wharves - Ganzhou was probably a treaty port - and an unsuspected, unrestored, century-old residential district, with remarkable walled mansions, a couple of tiny nunneries, and a pagoda. Back at the station, buses run east to
Yong'an in Fujian Province, and south to
Shaoguan and
Guangzhou in Guangdong Province.