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Jakki Phillips

Imagine a classic Chinese landscape of bamboo forest, rice paddies and lotus-filled waterways, dotted with villages that seem untouched by time.
Now add to that scene hundreds of castle-like watchtowers, their turrets rising unexpectedly against the skyline.
This is Kaiping in Guangdong province, just a couple of hours from Hong Kong by direct high-speed train from West Kowloon Station.
It is one of mainland China’s lesser-known Unesco World Heritage sites and home to more than 1,800 distinctive structures called diaolou.

Dating back to the Ming dynasty – though most were built in the 1920s and 30s – the diaolou were part fortress, part family home and part status symbol, protecting against bandits and flooding while projecting wealth and prestige.
This brings five other cyclists and me to Kaiping for a weekend cycling trip organised by travel specialists Bike Aways.
Scattered across the flat countryside, many of the diaolou can be reached only by farm tracks and quiet paths, making cycling the ideal way to explore them.
With Bike Aways founder Bruce Foreman and local guide Winson leading the way, the riding is easy-going. They take care of the logistics and navigation, time our visits to avoid the crowds, and encourage us to stop often to sample local specialities.
Foreman has a simple philosophy: “I see the bike as a passport rather than the main event. It lets us venture into places buses and cars can’t reach. I like taking people down forgotten back roads, through villages they might otherwise miss, and stopping for the sort of food locals actually eat. It’s less about how far you ride than how much you see and the experiences and encounters you have along the way.”

We ride around 50km (31 miles) on Saturday and 25km on Sunday. The pace is relaxed, with regular breaks. The emphasis is on the journey rather than the mileage, but you do need the confidence and fitness to comfortably cover the distances and cycle along everything from country lanes to occasional sections of busy main roads.
Our ride starts early on Saturday morning in the town of Tangkou, where we stay at the family-run Diaomin Tribe Boutique Hostel. It is a charmingly quirky place, spread across a maze of old buildings filled with curios, and though a little rough around the edges, it is clean, comfortable and welcoming.
Bikes, helmets and chilled water bottles are waiting for us outside, and our first destination is breakfast at a friendly dim sum restaurant a 20-minute ride away. After ordering too much and overeating, it is time to get back on the bike.
Throughout the morning, we pass dozens of tumble-down diaolou, regularly stopping to take a closer look.
At their peak, more than 3,000 diaolou stood across Kaiping. Those that survive today are mostly abandoned, derelict or slowly crumbling back into the countryside.

Four of Kaiping’s historic village areas – Jinjiangli, Zili, Majianglong and Sanmenli – form part of the Unesco World Heritage site. Their diaolou have been carefully restored and protected, their interiors preserved and open to visitors with an admission ticket.
From the late 19th century onwards, Foreman explains, generations of Kaiping residents left for the goldfields, railways and trading ports of America, Canada, Australia and Southeast Asia. They sent money, letters and photographs home before returning with new ideas and the means to bring them to life.
The result was an unprecedented period of diaolou construction, with no two looking alike. Roman arches and Greek colonnades rise above traditional Lingnan roofs, while baroque decorative flourishes and art deco details create a style that is unmistakably Kaiping.
We spend our first morning exploring two of Kaiping’s four Unesco-listed diaolou village areas: the Majianglong Village Cluster and Jinjiangli.

Majianglong lies hidden among dense forest. As we follow shady paths, the watchtowers gradually appear through the banana trees. The only sounds are the creak of bamboo and the steady hum of cicadas. It is easy to imagine how bandits once approached unseen.
These diaolou have been lovingly restored, and the original hand-carved wooden furniture, decorative tiles and stained-glass partitions remind us that these buildings were not just fortified watchtowers but the grand homes of prominent families.
Only when Foreman points them out do I notice the gun ports, iron shutters and overhanging rooftop “swallow’s nests” from which defenders could fire on attackers below. In an era when raids were a constant threat, these affluent and isolated villages were frequent targets.
By lunchtime, dark storm clouds are chasing us, and we reach Jinjiangli just as the heavens open. We are welcomed into the home of an older couple, who serve nong jia cai – generous family-style country cooking that has become a favourite with visitors seeking authentic rural flavours.
After a chicken is plucked and prepared, lunch is served at the kitchen table. Winter melon and fish soup, stir-fried chicken, a mountain of garlicky broad beans, beef with ginger, and bowls of rice arrive one dish after another.
By the time the rain eases, we have shared the sort of lunch you are unlikely to stumble across on your own – and one I’ll remember for a long time.
Just around the corner is Ruishi Lou, the tallest surviving diaolou in Kaiping, rising 28 metres (92 feet). The climb up nine storeys is hot work, but it is one of the best places to photograph the surrounding countryside, with balconies, arches and a circular window framing the view.

After descending, we cycle the 20km back to our guesthouse along the banks of the Tan River and sections of the Guangdong Greenway, a network of traffic-free cycling and walking trails.
During the evening, I wander around Tangkou, a small rural town quietly reinventing itself through a growing number of creative heritage projects, including a branch of Librairie Avant-Garde, one of China’s best-known independent bookstore chains, housed in a former grain depot.
Dinner is a five-minute moonlit cycle ride away at Tangkou Wenyuan Restaurant. We eat outside in the courtyard of a restored diaolou, ordering the local specialities of Magang goose and eel claypot rice.
On Sunday morning, our coffee stop is an unusual one: Hainongdao Jiangyuan Kafei, a traditional soy sauce brewery. In the courtyard, soybeans ferment in rows of large, squat earthenware pots beneath conical lids that look like hats. The signature soy sauce coffee may sound like a gimmick, but it is surprisingly good – subtly salty, gently sweet and strangely moreish.


We continue on to Zili, another of the Unesco villages. Spread across an open plain, it has the greatest concentration of residential diaolou anywhere in Kaiping and is a highlight of the trip. The setting is especially pretty, with wooden boardwalks crossing meadows and ponds filled with lotus flowers. The towers are some of the best-preserved.
One building displays movie posters and photographs documenting Kaiping’s long association with cinema. Many films have been shot among the diaolou, including Jiang Wen’s Let the Bullets Fly, Wong Kar-wai’s The Grandmaster and Lau Kar-leung’s Drunken Master II.
Our last stop is Li Yuan, Kaiping’s grandest garden estate, a 20,000-square-metre (215,000 sq ft) complex built in the 1930s. Italy-inspired pavilions, elegant archways and manicured gardens unfold around a network of canals, culminating in the estate’s unmistakable golden birdcage pavilion.
As our adventure draws to a close, it feels fitting to end by watching a short documentary in the small cinema at Li Yuan’s Kaiping Diaolou Museum. It brings everything together – in many ways, the perfect ending to a journey full of history and culture.
Upcoming trips will run September 18-20, October 23-25 and November 27-29. The package includes bike hire, local guides, accommodation, meals and admission tickets. For more information and bookings, visit Bike Aways.


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Kaiping’s diaolou watchtowers are scattered across the flat countryside of China’s Guangdong province, and with many only accessible along farm tracks and quiet paths, a bicycle tour is the ideal way to see them. Photo: Bruce Foreman

Surrounded by ponds filled with lotus flowers, the diaolou in Zili are some of Kaiping’s best-preserved. Photo: Jakki Phillips

Bike Aways participants cycle past one of Kaiping’s many diaolou. Photo: Jakki Phillips

The village of Zili is one of the four Kaiping village areas listed by Unesco and has the greatest concentration of residential diaolou in the region. Photo: Jakki Phillips

An abandoned diaolou in Kaiping. At one time there were more than 3,000 such structures in the area; now many are falling into disrepair. Photo: Jakki Phillips

At 28 metres high, Ruishi Lou in Jinjiangli Village is the tallest surviving diaolou in Kaiping. Photo: Jakki Phillips

Magang goose is a speciality of the Kaiping area. Photo: Bruce Foreman

Hainongdao Jiangyuan Kafei’s signature soy sauce coffee, made with its own brewed soy sauce, is subtly salty and gently sweet. Photo: Bruce Foreman

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Travel & Leisure

Many of the ‘diaolou’ can be reached only by farm tracks and quiet paths, making cycling the ideal way to explore them


Many of the ‘diaolou’ can be reached only by farm tracks and quiet paths, making cycling the ideal way to explore them.


Why China’s Unesco-listed Kaiping watchtowers are best discovered on two wheels

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Many of the ‘diaolou’ can be reached only by farm tracks and quiet paths, making cycling the ideal way to explore them

Many of the ‘diaolou’ can be reached only by farm tracks and quiet paths, making cycling the ideal way to explore them