Sheer red cliffs rise out of the green hills of Jiangxi, and in some of them, high above a stream, there are dark rectangular holes in the rock. They are the cliff tombs of the Guyue people, who lived in this area about 2,600 years ago and who placed their dead in wooden coffins in caves and ledges on the face of a cliff above the Lushui river. How they hauled the coffins up the cliff is a puzzle that was never fully solved, and when archaeologists excavated some of them in 1979 they found well-preserved cloth, musical instruments and tools, as well as skeletons. Guifeng, the Ghost Peak, is the best-known site, and its name reflects the awe the place has long inspired.
The cliffs belong to a landscape of Danxia, a type of red sandstone and conglomerate that erodes into steep towers, ridges and sheer walls, and Longhushan, the Dragon and Tiger Mountain, is one of the places included in the China Danxia World Heritage listing. The mountain is also the birthplace of organised Taoism, in a sense. Zhang Daoling, the founder of the Celestial Masters school in the second century, is said to have refined his elixir of immortality here, and his descendants, the Celestial Masters, held court at Longhushan for nearly two thousand years, with each generation of the family carrying the title. Temples and a former residence, the Tianshi Mansion, stand in the valley.
I should be straight about riding conditions. Riding a foreign motorcycle in China normally needs a Chinese licence, local registration and plates, and a guide, so most foreign visitors travel by car with a driver, bus or train. The countryside itself is lovely, with a mix of rice fields, bamboo groves, tea terraces and red cliffs above clear rivers, and the villages are quiet, with courtyard houses and local markets. Spring, with mist and fresh green, and autumn are the best seasons. Summers are hot and humid, with heavy rain and sometimes flooding.
Guixi, a city of more than seventy thousand people about twenty kilometres away, has fuel, restaurants and hotels, and it is known for its copper smelting, one of the biggest in the country. Local food is spicy, with river fish, bamboo shoots and sticky rice, and a pot of green tea is the right companion.