source：http://blog.yoyoor.com/

Once you finish the Western Steps and take a quick bus ride back to the base, it will be time for some restful wandering in the Huizhou villages. There are 3 Huizhou villages I recommend visiting: Nanping, Hongcun (with Mukeng), and Xidi. Hongcun is the best place to overnight, and Mukeng is a great place to have lunch on the hilltop. I would save Xidi and Nanping for last, if you have time.

Some notes on these villages:

1) Nanping is where parts of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and most of Zhang Yimou's Ju Dou were filmed. That is pretty much the only attraction in the village. It takes about 2 hours to see the entire village- 30 minutes to tour the preserved film sets and 1.5 hours to find your way out of the maze of streets. Nanping has fewer tourists and a more authentic feel than Xidi and Hongcun, but also has a less developed tourist infrastructure-- good luck getting a meal or a hotel inside this village. In hindsight, I would probably have skipped this one. I think the entry fee was 60/80rmb winter/summer.

2) Hongcun (UNESCO World Heritage Site) is the largest of the villages and the most photo-friendly. Make sure you get some reflection pictures on the "postage stamp" pond place in the center of town. The town is shaped like a cow-- make sure you walk up towards the head of the cow where you will find a really nice house and a wooden pavilion 3 stories up that overlooks the entire village (2 -5rmb to climb up top). Great photos and a nice spot to relax before dinner. In Hongcun, we ate at one of the restaurants just inside the ticket gate, I think it was called Hongcun Fandian. Make sure you try the bamboo in the area, it's pretty good. We had bamboo + pork etc soup for 2 of our 4 meals, it was great. The meat is also hang-dried for days for flavor. Entrance to Hongcun cost Y80.

3) Mukeng is a must-see as it breaks up the otherwise redundant village architecture. The entire valley is draped in bamboo on all sides with a village stuck in the middle. The village itself is only about 10 buildings, however. To get to Mukeng, get a 3-wheeled motorbike or other taxi from just outside the Hongcun ticket booth; from there it's 7km to Mukeng. Once in Mukeng, you can climb up to the top of a hill and walk around a ridge to the actual village -- it's steep and takes about 1 hour to walk. The entire hike is through bamboo forest with bamboo stairs, bamboo benches and bamboo pavilions. It's a great morning walk and you can get some more awesome food for lunch at one of the 2 restaurants located at the top of the village next to yet another preserved Crouching Tiger film set. I even suggest purchasing some of the chicken eggs here to bring home as we did-- can't get those eggs at a Chinese city grocery store. Mukeng costs 20rmb to enter. A motorbike costs 3rmb from Hongcun; taxi back might cost about Y10 depending on how many people etc.

4) Xidi (UNESCO WH site) was the most Disney of all the villages. It's a lot like Hongcun only with less water, and it has that big Ming Dynasty arch (paifang) on the outskirts of the village-- necessary photo op for the Chinese at least. Since we saw Xidi last, we breezed through it. I guess Xidi has more impressive architecture than Hongcun in the sense that Hongcun has a bunch of cool little buildings, while Xidi has major sites and large-scale Huizhou building examples. They all charge an extra couple of rmb to see, however.

That should do it! Now you are ready to return to your tour of China’s bustling cities.

To recap, here is an ideal itinerary of both the mountain and the villages:

Day 1: Hangzhou to Huangshan in the morning Climb/cable car up Huangshan’s eastern steps Explore the West Sea Canyon Overnight at Huangshan peak

Day 2: Huangshan sunrise Follow western steps down the mountain Bus to Xidi (via Yixian), explore Xidi Bus to Hongcun (via Yixian), overnight in Hongcun

Day 3: Explore early-morning Hongcun Pedicab to Mukeng, hike Mukeng bamboo forest Lunch at Mukeng village, pedicab back to Hongcun Transport to Huangshan City and on to your next destination

Just 3 days is all you need for an exhausting yet refreshing trip to beautiful Anhui Province. Give it a try!