The Heilong Jiang Di Yi Wan — the First Bend of the Heilong River — is a scenic viewpoint where the river makes a wide, photogenic curve through flat forested floodplain. From the elevated viewing platform, you look across a great meander of dark water with Russian forest visible on the far bank. The landscape is enormous and unpopulated in a way that is rare in China, and the silence, interrupted only by river birds, makes it genuinely affecting.
The viewpoint is most striking at the summer solstice, when the sun does not set until well after 10pm and the light on the water at that hour is extraordinary. In winter, the frozen river is a different proposition entirely — a grey-white expanse with no horizon, the Russian shore barely distinguishable in the cold haze. The drive from Mohe town through boreal forest is part of the experience; there is no public transport, so most visitors come by chartered taxi or tour vehicle.