Set on the Xiang river, important tributary of the Yangtse, Changsha is all chillies and tofu, thickets and waterways, it is sweaty summer nights at 3am where locals sit on squat stools drinking cups of beer and swallowing ground pigs ears on rice. Most interesting to the foreign visitor is the unique 'Orange Island', a sand bar in the middle of the central river which was once the domain of the colonists, isolated from the locals.

Picture: my.chinabroadcast.cn