A guesthouse in Xianju. [Photo by Wang Zhuangfei/China Daily]

Those who brave the hike are rewarded with views of colossal columns crowned with snarled evergreens.

If not the Home of the Immortals, Shenxianju is at least their rockery, replete with bonsai.

But Xianju's appeal extends beyond geology to anthropology, as a confettitoss of ancient towns pack the cracks between peaks.

Perhaps the most celebrated is Potan, a Tang Dynasty (618-907) port settlement along the Yong'an River that peaked in the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), after which railways and megabridges purloined its glory as a logistics hub.

It was a bustling commerce center and something of a sin city, with its famous Spring Flowers brothel, pawnshops and casino clusters. It also hosted temples for atonement after stints of depravity.

Today, it's a sleepy community of elderly farmers.

Despite Potan's history as a commercial livewire, nary a store is to be found among the crumbling buildings. The only retail seems to be the occasional hunched granny hawking fresh eggs from basins.

That, plus its scarcely renovated houses constructed from uncut stone and rough wood planks makes it a delightful antithesis to the Disneyfied "ancient" towns found throughout the region－where original buildings are demolished and rebuilt, and residents relocated to make way for kitschy shops pushing mass-produced trinkets.

Its authentic allure is truly natural－like the rest of Xianju.