Kaiping

A village with lots of beautiful diaolou amidst rice fields and lotus ponds. Chickens and vegetable gardens are around too, and you'll see villagers working in the garden.

A group of neoclassical and baroque buildings with Chinese ornamental roofs in an elegant garden. Colorfully decorated and beautifully restored diaolou. The complex is well preserved but renovated so much it feels kind of artificial. Hosts a museum about the Xie family, who built the complex in the early 20th century, and other overseas Chinese of the early 20th century.

Diaolou among the bamboo thickets. This village is very quiet, though the chickens and geese in coops prove there are still people living here. Not many villagers and even fewer tourists walking around.

Two impressively shaped diaolou with bulbous cantilevered upper storeys, one of which you can go up in for lovely views. There are quite a few additional diaolou nearby in various states of disrepair. This is the farthest out of the four main villages, but it has much more life than Majianglong. You can experience a bit of the atmosphere of Chinese rural life—chickens and geese puttering around, peanuts drying in the sun, and villagers cleaning, working, or chatting around a table.

A tower built in 1912 where seven soldiers from Chikan fought and died in 1945 in the war against the Japanese. It's designated as a "patriotic education base", and the information about the seven-day battle is all in Chinese, so it might not mean much to you as a foreigner unless you have a special interest in modern Chinese history and national identity. But the top of the 7-story, 22-meter tower does have nice views of the Tanjiang River, the countryside, and Kaiping's blocks of high-rises. You may be the only visitor there unless you happen to arrive at the same time as a tour bus.

A market town with many arcade buildings built in the mixed western and eastern style by overseas Chinese during the early 20th century. Lovely short riverfront walk. On the opposite river side, you can rent bikes from the youth hostel to discover the area. Reach Chikan comfortably in 20 minutes using bus 106 running through most of western Kaiping. Chikan old town is under renovations, beginning 2017 and expected to last several years.

A lovely old village like many others in the area, except that it's quite large, much livelier than most, and has the oldest diaolou in Kaiping, the squat 3-story Yinglong Lou built in the Ming Dynasty. Wander around for a half hour and say hello to the old ladies sorting orange peels, the farmers harvesting rice, the mahjong players near the village entrance, and the chickens milling around.