Ninety minutes south of Wanning, LINGSHUI (Lingcheng) has been around for a long time. They were forging iron tools and making pottery here as far back as the Han dynasty, while uncovered silver tomb ornaments point to the town being an important commercial centre by the Ming dynasty. Somewhere that Li and Han seem to have always easily coexisted, Lingshui played a part in modern history when, having shifted south from Qionghai, China's first Communist government convened here in 1928, just months after Chiang Kaishek's bloody clampdown in Shanghai. The cell was still functioning when the Japanese stormed Hainan in February 1939, and its members retreated into the hills to wage guerrilla war on the invaders with the help of the local Li population. The Communists never forgot this, and once in power granted the district nominal self-rule as Lingshui Li Autonomous County .

 

Today, Lingshui's dozen or so narrow streets are set back off the highway where it bends sharply past town near the bus station. Around town you'll see remains of a Qing-dynasty monastery , the interior still decorated with original frescoes, but now used to store video game machines; a Communist Museum in another building of similar vintage (there's a cannon outside); several fifty-year-old shops with what look like their original fittings; and one recent innovation, a karaoke lottery lounge , easily identifiable by the mass of ticket sellers and waste stubs scattered outside. Wander off to Lingshui's fringes and you could be stepping back a century ago with lanes twisting into the countryside between walls of low-family compounds, houses sporting decorative columns topped with lotus bud motifs, and courtyards thickly planted with slender areca palms , often with conical buckets strapped around the trunks. These catch falling betel nuts ( binlang), a crop cultivated as a stimulant by the Li since at least Ming times. Women are the biggest users, but just about everyone in Lingshui seems to have stained their lips and teeth from chewing slices of the palm seed, wrapped inside a heart-shaped pepper vine leaf.

Lingshui's main bus station , on a bend in the highway, is where most minibuses from Wanning drop off and where Sanya-and Haikou-bound vehicles depart. If you're arriving from the south, you might also end up at the minibus depot about 1km down the road on the Sanya side of town. This is where you'll also find onward transport to Xincun . For accommodation , try the rooms at the Jincheng Binguan (¥75-100) or the dorm-style doubles at the Yeyun Yuleting Zhaodaisuo (¥30-75), near each other on the highway just north of the bus station - look for the adjacent Bank of China (which is unable to change travellers' cheques). The best places to eat are around here too. There's a popular and good-value restaurant directly opposite the bus station ticket office, and numerous bustling tea houses along the highway and backstreets.