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The Zuo Jiang, one of China’s southernmost rivers, runs north into the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region from Vietnam.

It was off limits for Western travelers for many years, principally because of wars. The Vietnamese conflicts — first with the French, then with Americans, then with the Chinese — made this part of China a troubled zone. Now it is open to travelers and a spectacular destination for Watertravel.

We went in a family riverboat to a 100-year-old post-and-beam lodge at Mt. Huashan, located around 25 miles (40 km) from the Vietnamese border. There one can see some very old, if not actually ancient, rock paintings by the ancestors of the Zhuang people whose descendants still inhabit the area.

From the comfort of a deck chair, one can see sweeping panoramic vistas of the rock-faced and cave-riddled mountains that line the river. There is a golden camelia and a variety of monkey which are native to this area only — subjects for future issues of Watertravel, as is the approach from the Vietnamese side.