Pulling into Kaiping by bus from Guangzhou I saw my first Diaolou. What a weird mix of castle tower and appartment building with some Asian decorations added to the mix. You will find the whole landsccape around Kaiping dotted with these structures and plenty of photo opportunities. The site itself covers three representative examples of this architecture. 

I started my visit in Zili, probably the most touristy one of the three villages. The premises and facilities indicate that they are devised to handle way more people than the few that showed up end of October. Zili is nice to explore with some buildings open for visitors. From the inside these look rather mundane, but this is to be expected. Obviously, you want to climb one of the towers for the view and photo opportunity.

After Zili I went by shuttle to Majanglong. Majanglong is surprisingly large. In the end I needed to hurry to catch my shuttle bus. Majanglong feels more like a true village. It's also the less touristy one, so I really enjoyed my time there. The individual buildings, though, are more spectacular in Zili.

Looking at Els review from 2007, things have changed dramatically. The Chinese have put in place a serious tourist infrastructure with combined tickets, a shuttle service instead of rikschas and plenty of restrooms. In Majanglong it felt there were more restrooms than tourists that day. China is changing fast.

Last but not least a few words on the merits. This is 20th century  vernacular architecture by nouveau rich Chinese, some of it quite kitschy. It's fun to visit, but more as an oddity than as a architecture masterpiece.

Getting To

You can find the perfect travel description including photos at GuangzhouTravelGuide.com. I followed their steps and everything worked out perfectly. From my side just a few observations:

• Kengkou Subway Station is easy to reach. From there the bus station is well sign posted.
• The bus ride from Guangzhou to Kaiping (Yici Terminal) took 2h. The return took a bit more as we got stuck in a Guangzhou rush hour traffic jam.
• The bus stand in Kaiping for bus 617 is labelled and easy to spot. It's the first booth in the departure area for local (= numbered) busses of the Yici bus terminal. The number is also displayed on the bus itself. Initially, the bus does a few weird detours in Kaiping but it gets you to Zili and Li Garden (Li Yuan) in 30min. You will see signs on the highway, so you know when to get off.
• To return you just wait on the opposite side of the road and wink when the bus passes.
• In Kaiping I had to wait 15min for the bus. On my way back it took less than 5min.
• For returning to Guangzhou you have multiple different terminal bus stations to choose from. I opted for a return to Fangcun, my original starting point. Looking at the terrible traffic in Guangzhou it seems smart to get on the Metro as soon as possible, i.e. to take the most westward bus terminal.

Getting Around

Bus 617 takes you directly to Li Garden (not part of the site) and Zili. The other components are more than 10km away, so walking is not really an option. Luckily, the sites operate a shuttle bus that connects Li Garden, Zili and Majanglong Village every 1,5h. The shuttle is included in the combined ticket (180 CNY). If you time it right, you have an hour each at both Zili and Majanglong.

Hours as of November 2018 are (every 1.5h, last bus at 16h):

• Majanglong 10h > Li Garden 10.15h > Zili: 10.25h
• Zili 10h > Li Garden 10..15h > Majanglong 10.35h

The schedule is posted at each stop, so please confirm the times yourself. My recommendation would be to start in Zili then take the shuttle to Majanglong and end in Li Garden before you return to Kaiping and Guangzhou.

If you want to go to Jinjiangli Village my understanding is that you can take a regular bus along the main road to take you there.

While You Are There

As stated Li Garden is not part of the inscribed site. I think the reason is that this is too Western with too few Asian touches added and as a consequence not very original. If you get the combined ticket the site is included and you may well take a stroll. The shuttle also stops for a few more sites that you may want to check out.