Discover Guilin and Yangshuo
Yangshuo West Street
阳朔西街
Yangshuo's 1,400-year-old main lane, which became China's first backpacker street in the 1980s and is now a dense strip of bars, cafes, climbing shops and souvenir stalls under karst peaks. Loud, touristy, and still the practical hub for arranging everything else.
The story
What makes this place special
West Street is the old main lane of Yangshuo town, a market street in the Guibei region under the Ming and Qing - claims that it is 1,400 years old are standard tourist-board copy rather than documented history. Its modern significance is different: from the 1980s it filled with foreign backpackers, who opened cafes, bars and restaurants along it, and it became known as China's first 'foreigners' street' and a place where locals came to practise English. That era has largely passed; the street is now mainstream Chinese domestic tourism, with bars, chain snack shops and souvenir stalls.
What you’ll discover
A pedestrianised stone-paved street a few hundred metres long running from the Li River bank inland, with low two- and three-storey shophouses, karst peaks visible at the end of it in both directions, and the whole length given over to bars, beer-fish restaurants, osmanthus-wine and dried-fruit shops, tailors and souvenir stands. The side lanes off it hold hostels, guesthouses and the quieter cafes. At night it is loud: live bands, bar touts and crowds.
A little local insight
Good to know before you go
- Treat it as an evening, not a sight. By day it is a commercial street selling much the same handicrafts as every other restored old street in China, and an hour covers it; at night the bars open, the lighting comes on and it does what it is actually for.
- The street is where you sleep and eat, not what you came to Yangshuo for. The reason to be in Yangshuo is the countryside - Yulong River, Xingping, the Ten-Mile Gallery, the climbs at Moon Hill and Laozhai. Base yourself near West Street and spend the daylight out of town.
- Eat the beer fish, but not on West Street itself. Yangshuo beer fish (pijiu yu) is the genuine local dish; the versions one street back, or in Xingping, cost less and are generally better than the ones with photo menus and English touts on the main drag.
- Prices here are tourist prices and the first number is not the number. Haggling is expected in the souvenir shops and not in the restaurants.
- Avoid the May Day and National Day holidays entirely - room rates in Yangshuo roughly double and the street becomes impassable.
When to come
After dark, from about 8pm, when the bars and lights come on; it is the one time the street has a character of its own. Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons in Yangshuo for the cycling and river trips the town exists to serve; summer is hot and wet, winter cool and quiet.
Getting around
Easy. Flat stone-paved pedestrian street with no steps and no traffic, short enough to cover in a few minutes, and a wheelchair can use its whole length. Surfaces are smooth-worn flagstone and can be slippery when wet, and the crush of people on a summer evening is the real obstacle rather than the terrain. Shop and restaurant doorways often have a lip or a single step.
Worth knowing before you go
Use it as a base, not a destination: guesthouses here rent scooters and bikes and arrange rafts, and the countryside you actually came for starts five minutes' ride away.
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