China Guide
Fujian, Guangdong and Hainan Island
Around the Pearl River
Yanjiang Lu, the northern promenade along the Pearl River, is lined with trees and a smattering of colonial-era buildings – such as the Customs House and Aiqun Hotel – and is a good place just to mill about on hot summer evenings.
If you follow Yanjiang Lu to its eastern end you'll find yourself crossing to Er Sha Island, the focus of much upmarket housing development and home to the Guangdong Museum of Art (Tues– Sun 9am–5pm; ¥15; 
www.gdmoa.org ). The museum holds one of China's largest collections of contemporary art, along with special exhibitions reflecting the country's shifting political and social conditions.
North from the river, Yide Lu is stuffed with small shops selling toys, dried marine produce – jellyfish, shark's fin, fish maw and whole salted mackerel – along with sacks of nuts and candied fruit.
To the north, Wuxian Guan (Five Immortals' Temple), on Huifu Xi Lu, dates from 1377. The original wooden building isn't much to write home about, but there are some obviously ancient statues around the place: weathered guardian lions flank the way in, and there are some stylized Ming sculptures at the back, looking like giant chess pieces. The Five Immortals – three men and two women – are depicted too, riding their goatly steeds as they descend through the clouds to found Guangzhou. Also impressive is a fourteenth-century bell tower behind the temple, in which hangs a three-metre-high, five-tonne bronze bell, silent since receiving the blame for a plague which broke out shortly after its installation in 1378 – it has been called the "Forbidden Bell" ever since.