5 Days in Panjin

Give the full day to the roughly 18-kilometre corridor of suaeda flats — green in April, deepest red through September and October — riding the shuttle between boardwalk sections and staying for the evening glow.

1. panjin red beach corridor

Saunders's gulls come back in March-April and nest May-June, red-crowned cranes pause in March and November, and the reed beds beside them rank among the world's largest; a ranger-hide morning is the birding peak.

1. panjin liaohe estuary wetland
2. panjin reed sea

The old fishing town of Erjiegon keeps the delta's fishing-goose heritage of families who once followed the seasonal catch, plus clam flats and dried-seafood stalls; finish on the sandy arc of Jinbo beach.

1. panjin erjiegon fishing port
2. panjin jinbo beach

An honestly labelled neighbour-city day — an hour south, Yingkou opened as a treaty port in 1861, the first in the northeast, and its Liaohe old street lines up century-old bank buildings and Russian-style facades beside the 1880s west fort.

1. panjin yingkou liaohe old street

Carved calligraphy in the Liaohe stele forest, then a paddock-to-table lunch of Panjin rice and river crabs — fattest in September and October — before the train or the coastal high-speed line out.

1. panjin liaohe stele forest
2. panjin rice crab fields