Done the diaolou? Jiangmen has more for you

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It’s a fact that tourists headed to Jiangmen in Guangdong Province are largely there for the UNESCO-listed Kaiping Diaolou.

That comes as hardly a surprise. The “diaolou” – fortified residences or watchtowers mostly built by cashed-up overseas Chinese during the early 1900s – are spectacular structures. Their beauty against their bucolic backdrops is bound to take your breath away.

But what else is there to do once you’ve snapped yourself happy at the diaolou sites?

First, feast on fowl

While you’re satiating your cravings for Cantonese cuisine, make sure to save some stomach room for the local variety of Peking duck – Kaiping goose. In downtown Kaiping you can gobble down a royal poultry feast at Goose City, a gigantic open-kitchen restaurant inside a castle.

Second, savour serenity

Liyuan Garden is one of the four most famous gardens in Guangdong, a manicured mixture of oriental landscaping and occidental architecture. Owned by Xie Weili, an emigrant to the USA, the charming complex was completed in 1936 and comprises 1.1 hectares of canals, corridors, bridges, pavilions and six magnificent villas.

Third, go to Taishan

This county-level city in Jiangmen is known for another type of “lou” – the “qilou”, or arcade houses, where street-level storefronts were set back 2.5m to create covered walkways. The qilou of the Mei Family Compound are said to be the largest and best preserved; in fact, parts of the 2010 action-comedy "Let the Bullets Fly" starring Chow Yun-Fat was filmed there.

So, there you have it, three extra things to do in Jiangmen once you’ve done the diaolou. Of course, there’s even more, but we’ll save that for another time!

Meanwhile, explore Jiangmen with Travelogue host Min-Zhui Lee in the second episode of our epic 10-part series “The Pearl River: Mouth to Source”. It broadcasts on CGTN on Sunday, March 11, at 7:30 a.m. (Beijing Time). Rebroadcast times: Sundays 4:30 p.m., Mondays 2:00 a.m. and Thursdays 1:30 p.m..