This photo was taken in the early afternoon as we stood on the 600-year-old stone Dragon Bridge that crosses Yulong River, south of Yangshuo in Guangxi province. We'd just ridden our bikes through paddy fields and remote villages, seen farmers harvesting rice, labourers building stone walls, water buffalo and chicken running wild, when we came to this busy tourist spot where locals love to punt up and down the river, surrounded by the limestone mountains for which the region is famous. We were the only Westerners. What made it so memorable was the contrast between the toil of the countryside compared with the holiday atmosphere of Dragon Bridge, and the brilliant colours of the bamboo rafts.