Anhui owes a good deal to SHEXIAN , an easy, forty-minute minibus ride 25km east of Tunxi on the Hangzhou road, and once the regional capital and important trading centre on the Xin'an River - the name "Anhui" is a telescoping of Anqing and Huizhou, Shexian's former name. The region blossomed in the seventeenth century after local salt merchants started raising elaborate town houses and intricately carved stone archways , many of which survive today, in a showy display of their wealth. The province's opera styles were formalized here, and the town became famous for hui ink stones and fine-grained she ink sticks, the latter still considered China's best.

 

Shexian's bus station is out on the highway, where arrivals are accosted by "guides" and motor-rickshaw drivers. You don't need them: take the bridge over the river and carry straight on past 100m of uninspiring, concrete-and-tile buildings; at the end of the road turn right, then first left, and you're walking up Jiefang Jie , off which run the narrow lanes that comprise the older part of town. To the sides you'll see the restored Nan Lou and Yanghe Men gate towers; straight ahead, however, Jiefang Jie runs under the smaller but highly decorative Xuguo archway , one of the finest in the region. Nearby are souvenir stalls and a bookshop , where you should pick up a map of Shexian (about ¥2.50) with all the streets and points of interest marked. Though by no means every building is an architectural wonder, one of Shexian's charms is that most are still in everyday use, not tarted up for tourism, and there's a genuinely dated ambience to soak up. You could just walk at random, snacking on traditional "pressed buns", but for a detailed look, seek out Doushan Jie , a street with several well-preserved Huizhou style homes, around which you can tour with a Chinese-speaking guide (¥8). When you've had enough, return to the station and get a Tunxi-bound minibus to drop you off around 5km down the highway, then walk or catch a motorbike-rickshaw for the last 3km to where the Tangyue archway (¥20) forms a strange spectacle of six ornamental gates standing isolated in a row in a field.