Five thousand years ago, on the plain north of Hangzhou, people built a city with a water system so sophisticated that archaeologists still marvel at it. This is the Liangzhu culture, and the Yaoshan site is one of its most intriguing pieces, thought to be a ritual platform where elites took part in ceremonies and where beautifully worked jades were buried. The Liangzhu people carved jade into discs called bi and tubes known as cong, with delicate, mask-like faces, and these objects were symbols of status and belief. The whole Liangzhu complex has been a UNESCO site since 2019.
The scale is the astonishing thing. A walled city, a network of canals and a series of dams in the hills to the northwest that controlled flooding show that this was a well-organised society, built on rice farming, with no written records. Much of what we know comes from decades of patient excavation, and the Liangzhu museum on the plain tells the story with finds that are hard to forget. At Yaoshan itself there is less to see on the ground, and the value is in understanding what lies under the fields and the low hills.
The country around is soft and green, the sort of landscape for which this region, south of the Yangtze, is known: rice paddies, bamboo, tea bushes on the hills and small canals threading the plains. Deqing is a town of about 88,000 people 14 km away, and Hangzhou, with its West Lake and its tea plantations, is only about 20 km away. Roads are flat and well surfaced, though busy, and traffic includes many trucks and scooters. Spring brings blossom and green tea, while summer is humid and often rainy.
Practicalities for a motorcycle rider need care. Foreign riders can find it hard to ride in China, as local licensing and plate rules apply, and motorbikes are barred or restricted in many urban areas. If you are on the ground here, hire a car and driver or a bicycle, and use the time to see the jade and the museum. Hangzhou's Longjing tea, grown on the hills near the lake, is the thing to try, and a pot of it in a quiet tea house is a calm way to end the day.