Chengdu or Yangshuo?

Neither place has a coast, and both leave sea and sand for another leg of the trip. Yangshuo still edges it because it has proper river swimming: in the hot months people swim from the gravel banks and weirs of the Yulong and in calm reaches of the Li, often after a day on a raft or a bike.

In Chengdu, cooling off means a hotel pool or a water park on the edge of the city.

Chengdu is one of the great food cities of China, and the gap here is wide. Mapo tofu, dan dan noodles, red-oil cold dishes and late-night beef-tallow hotpot are only the start, and family counters in the residential lanes add spicy rabbit head, broth skewers and tangyuan.

Yangshuo eats well but narrowly. Beer fish, stuffed snails and vegetables and breakfast bowls of Guilin rice noodles cover most of it, and the better versions are in side streets and riverside villages rather than on West Street.

Chengdu has a solid set of sights for a mostly modern city: the Wuhou Shrine and Du Fu Thatched Cottage, the working Wenshu Monastery and Qingyang Palace, and the Jinsha and Sichuan museums with their ancient Shu gold and jade. That is three or four days of looking.

Yangshuo has almost nothing of the kind. Its centre is rebuilt, there are no significant museums, and the old brick villages, the Ming-era Dragon Bridge and the Big Banyan Tree are pleasant stops on a bike ride rather than reasons to come.

Chengdu has a far fuller evening, built around food: a long hotpot dinner, then the neon bars and clubs around Jiuyanqiao, or quieter cocktail and craft-beer places in the Yulin and consulate districts. The choice of mood is the real advantage.

Yangshuo's night is West Street and little else, with open-fronted bars, dancers on stage and table games for crowds of domestic tourists. Step out into the villages and the evening is dark and silent.

This is Yangshuo's great strength. The karst peaks and rice fields begin at the edge of town, and the classic outings, a bamboo raft down the Yulong, the walk along the Li from Yangdi to Xingping, Moon Hill and the climb up Laozhai Hill, need no more than a bike. It is also one of Asia's major rock-climbing bases.

Chengdu sits on a flat, often hazy basin floor, so its scenery means a trip out: Qingcheng's forested Taoist trails about an hour away, the cloud forest and monkeys of Emeishan, and the panda reserves towards Wolong.

Chengdu wins this clearly, because its days out lead to major heritage rather than pleasant extras. The Giant Buddha at Leshan is an easy morning by train, Dujiangyan shows waterworks that have fed the plain for more than two millennia, and the bronzes at Sanxingdui are among the strangest finds in Chinese archaeology. Each is a day you would plan the trip around, and the old market towns fill a quieter day.\n\nYangshuo's list is thinner. Xingping, Fuli, Daxu and the better-kept Huangyao are small old towns, good for an afternoon, and Guilin is a handy but unremarkable hop. The outings that matter here are the rivers and peaks around town, so few visitors feel much need to leave.

Chengdu gives children more, above all the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base, best visited early when the pandas are active, plus a zoo, an aquarium park and amusement parks. Spicy food and long distances take some planning.

Yangshuo has no zoo or theme park, so it suits older children who like being outside. Bamboo rafts on the Yulong, show caves with mud pools and tandem bike rides are the highlights, though busy country roads need care with little ones.

Chengdu is the easier place to move around despite its size. The metro has English signs and reaches the panda base, the main sights, both airports and the rail stations, with cheap taxis and shared bikes for the rest. Set up payment and ride-hailing apps before arriving.

In Yangshuo the town centre is a short walk, but the scenery lies out in the countryside, so most visitors hire a bike or electric scooter. Minibuses and drivers fill gaps, the high-speed station is a drive out of town, and signs beyond the centre are mostly in Chinese.

Chengdu is a real shopping city, with the big malls of Chunxi Road, the traditional-style quarter beside the Daci Temple, and local goods such as Shu brocade, Sichuan embroidery, chilli bean paste and mountain green teas.

Yangshuo is souvenir stalls along West Street, much of it mass-produced. The one craft worth seeking out is the hand-painted fans of Fuli village.

Both are cheap for a visitor, and the money goes a long way in either. The difference is where it gets spent. In Chengdu, comfortable and even upscale hotels are inexpensive, and costs rise mainly with imported drinks, international restaurants and train fares to the day-trip sights.

In Yangshuo, village guesthouses, noodle breakfasts and bike hire cost very little, but the ticketed experiences, Li River cruises, rafts, caves and the night show, carry tourist prices, and room rates jump at Golden Week and the Spring Festival.

Chengdu offers more to go and see. Sichuan opera's face-changing, fire-spitting and puppetry are staged nightly, and its livehouses host indie, folk and Sichuan-dialect hip-hop, a scene Yangshuo has nothing to match.

Yangshuo has one big event: Zhang Yimou's outdoor show on the Li River, with hundreds of performers lit against the floodlit peaks. It is a memorable spectacle, but beyond it there are only tour-group dance shows and cover bands.

Chengdu builds rest into the city itself. Afternoons in People's Park teahouses over bottomless cups, ear cleaners and mahjong, cheap massage on almost every street and hot-spring resorts towards Qingcheng give many easy ways to slow down, even though the megacity is always close by.

Yangshuo can be deeply restful, but only in the right place. Guesthouses in the Yulong valley offer terraces over the rice fields, tai chi classes and a warm mud pool in one of the caves, while the town centre stays loud late into the night.