HUIZHOU , 160km from Guangzhou, is a place of water, caught between five lakes and the confluence of the Dong and Xizhi rivers. It was settled over two thousand years ago and later became capital of the Southern Han court. What saves Huizhou from being just another small, run-of-the-mill Chinese town is the genteel scenery surrounding the two-square-kilometre Xi Hu (West Lake). First laid out as a park by Song-dynasty engineers, the lake is a pleasant place to spend a day or a few hours strolling around the constructed landscapes and watching crowds of locals do the same.

 

Huizhou isn't a large place, and Xi Hu covers about the same area as the centre of town. There are several entrances open from 6am until after dark (¥3), but the main one is next to the Huizhou Binguan on Huangcheng Lu. The path here crosses the lake over a five-hundred-metre causeway, whose two sections are joined by a small humpbacked bridge made of white marble. It was built in 1096 by a monk named Xigu and funded by the Sichuanese poet-official Su Dongpo , then Huizhou's governor and composer of a famous verse extolling the beauty of the full moon seen from this spot. On the far shore there's a thirteen-storey brick pagoda from 1618, whose wobbly wooden stairs can be climbed for fine views north and south across the waters. Next door is a noble statue of Su Dongpo, with an adjacent museum displaying a battered inkstone said to have belonged to this ubiquitous man of letters. The main path heads off across the lake again from here, this time via a zigzagging bridge and a series of strategically placed islets, thick with bamboo groves, to the northern shore forecourt of Yuan Miao , an old Taoist nunnery. It's a bizarre place, fully functioning but somewhat in need of repairs, with an improbable number of tiny rooms and atriums decorated with Taoist symbols and auspicious carvings of bats, tigers and cranes. Off to one side is the inevitable shrine to the Buddhist deity Guanyin and a pit full of live tortoises, while in the far hall acolytes and nuns dance and sing themselves into a religious frenzy. Walking back down Huangcheng Lu from here, there are a few more islands linked to the footpath, the favoured haunt of weekend street performers who keep crowds entertained with theatre and martial arts displays.