So a teacher here wanted to know more about my trip to Guizhou province in China, which was back in the summer of 2012. I responded with a long email about my journey and I figured I might as well just copy and paste it here for all of you to read as well. Only a few things were changed or added.
I first took a train from Nanchang to a town called
Anshun, which is about two hours away from Guiyang, the capital of the province. I can't remember how long it took, but you can easily look it up here:
http://www.travelchinaguide.com/china-trains/ . Originally I wanted to go to Guiyang, but I figured Anshun was better because of all the sights around there. But even if you don't want to see any of the sights around Anshun, it's still a major travel hub for Guizhou. After I arrived I had trouble finding a hotel, but a young local helped me out a lot and I had dinner with him a couple times. The town itself has nothing special to see, but it does have a nice night market with lots of delicious local delicacies, like
fish hot pot. You can also get
fresh fruit shakes around the night market. Be aware that this part of Guizhou has a lot of
dog meat restaurants. If you're interested in trying it, just look for the restaurants with pictures of dogs on the sign or the characters 狗肉. If you're not interested, don't be worried because even here you'd have to go out of your way to accidentally eat it.
The area around Anshun is famous for
Huangguoshu Falls, an area with a dozen or so thundering waterfalls. The place was massively crowded unfortunately, but the area really was magnificent. This will probably be the most crowded place you'll see in Guizhou. I took a local bus there and at first I intended to walk from one waterfall to the next, but it was too time-consuming and tiring and I hired a motorbike driver to take me around. It might be a good idea to pay a little extra and hop onto one of the tour buses.
After the Falls, I took a long day trip to north to
Zhijin Cave, one of the biggest caves in China. It was also kind of touristy, but not nearly as bad as Huangguoshu Falls. The cave is very impressive with stalactites and stalagmites contorted into all sorts of shapes and sizes. I took a long-distance bus to the town of Zhijin that took about three hours, then a local bus to the caves. The trip was really rough and bumpy on the way there, but oddly enough it was rather smooth coming back.
From Anshun, I went farther south to
Xingyi. Again, the town itself is nothing special, but the star attraction here is
Maling Gorge,
which is pretty close by local bus. Don't expect the Grand Canyon or anything, but this gorge is still gorgeous with thin waterfalls cascading down all sides and it's not
too touristy. Back in Xingyi, I met a really nice local at a travel office who took me out for
dog hot pot with his family. It was pretty tasty, but I think it made me sick the next few days. According to Chinese custom, dog meat should be eaten in the winter, not the summer, so I learned my lesson from that experience.
I took a trip to
Weining in
western Guizhou, which is famous for the rather swampy
Caohai Lake. I thought it would be very impressive, but the price of boat tours was really high and I admit I didn't know how to ask the local tourists if I could join them, so I didn't bother. Maybe I was also really cynical, but I really didn't want to ride with the locals either; I was afraid I would be the main attraction and not the lake. During the summer it's not really possible to walk around the lake because it's just so damn muddy. The second miserable thing happened there is that most of the locals stared at me wherever I walked and many of them would giggle and mumble "laowai" or "waiguoren". They're not aggressive at all, just curious and surprised, but I really didn't like it anyway. I should note that I didn't see a single foreigner in town, so I know I was probably the first foreigner hundreds of them have ever saw. Finally, the third miserable thing that happened to me, and this was the worst, was the horrible stomach flu I got from the dog hot pot. I was stuck in my hotel room and I had to stay in this town for a few more days than I wanted. So I would avoid this town if traveling alone, but it might be nice if you go with a few other people. However, this part of Guizhou had the best scenery in the province and I saw so many stunning
karsts out the window of my bus.
As soon as I was well again, I went to Guiyang where I stayed just for two nights. It doesn't stand out among other provincial capitals at all, but it does have a nice park with playful monkeys and the cuisine is delicious. After Guiyang, I went to
Kaili in
eastern Guizhou. It's yet another town with very little to see, except for a
hilltop pagoda with views of the dusty city. But I saw a grandma
sacrifice a chicken at an altar in front of her young granddaughter; it was so cool! And I did walk around some of the
back alleys and that was pretty fun plus there's a small night market with lots of tasty snacks, like
potato pancakes with onions, and
barbecue. The main reason to come here is as a convenient jumping off point for all the
minority towns and villages in the area. Yes, all of these villages are a little touristy, but I
never found the tourists to be overwhelming and there was
never an entrance fee to the ones I went to. But it's important to note that there
are villages that are quite touristy and
do charge a fee, but I didn't go to any of them. It's very important to note that some villages may be really crowded with tourists during local festivals and national holidays, but almost empty at any other time. My timing for my trip was just a little off so I didn't go to any festivals, which may or may not have been a good thing. I went to a helpful tourist office in Kaili and the guy there told me a lot of useful suggestions, such as
avoid the town of Xijiang. So here are some villages I did go to:
Matang: Tiny, quaint village surrounded by fields and famous for
embroidery. I saw no more than a handful of tourists scattered around and I think none of them were foreigners. It was pleasant just wandering down the lanes and I was lucky enough to see a group of teenagers doing a
traditional dance/song. It was not a formal performance at all, just practice, but I think that's what made it so special. I had lunch here in a small home where I think I had tomatoes, eggs, and peppers. Pretty tasty, but I was a bit surprised by how it was kind of expensive (for a simple meal in a simple home, of course). There's another even tinier
village on a lovely trail that stretches behind Matang and affords fantastic views of the
hilly countryside. This village seemed like it was set up for tourists (they had a performance stage and several bad English signs around), but I was the only one there. I suppose in theory you could just strap your backpack on and trek from village to village, but you'd have to be careful not to get lost. Matang was an easy half-day trip by bus from Kaili. On the way back, you might have to wave your arm on the opposite side of the road to get the bus to stop.
Basha and
Congjiang: Congjiang is a small, nondescript, two-road town straddling a narrow river in a valley. It has very little of interest, except for it's close proximity to the lovely hamlet of Basha set on one side of the mountain. The central square of Basha feels a tad touristy and fake, but it's very easy to weave your way around the
thatched homes and get great views of the countryside, which is a lot more majestic than the area behind Matang. Very little is set up for tourists in the numerous lanes, so it's a wonderful opportunity to see
day-to-day rural life. My guidebook (yup, the Lonely Planet!) says you might have to pay a small entrance fee, but I was never asked for it. Walk uphill from Congjiang for an hour or two, or just flag down a motorcycle. This is not a day trip; you will have to spend the night in Congjiang.
Zhaoxing: Possibly the biggest village I went to in eastern Guizhou, I really enjoyed this place. Yes, the place does look like it's been cleaned up and polished just for visitors. Yes, you'll see bilingual signs and plaques everywhere. But it's still a very authentic slice of rural, minority life and it's still not too crowded with tourists. I was able to wander around the alleys and spotted just a few foreign travelers. Zhaoxing is a very pretty village with attractive
wooden homes and bridges situated in front of
vibrantly green rice paddies with
lush mountains in the background to complete the picture. I had a short but amazing
half-day trek up the winding mountain road to a set of
two or three other villages where I could get fantastic views of Zhaoxing and encounter even fewer tourists! The walk back down the mountain was much better and more tranquil than coming up as I followed some English-Chinese signs pointing me to a
narrow trail that snaked back to town with the mountain wall to my left and an interchanging scene of forests/rice paddies/panoramic views to my right. I went directly from Congjiang to here and spent two nights. Going back to Kaili I had to change buses at either Liping or Diping, I can't remember.
The final place I went to in Guizhou was
Zhenyuan. This was more of a typical, small Chinese town than a quaint village, but it had a narrow, pretty
river snaking through the middle of it that was lit up at night and also had some decent
mountain trails with good views and were easily accessible from town by walking. The tourist agency in Kaili recommended this one, but I was overall underwhelmed. On the mountain I met a small group of very friendly Chinese students and later I randomly met a guy who was either a soldier or a forest ranger, I can't remember. Or maybe a policeman. Anyway, he showed me around the river area a little and treated me to dinner. We also watched a movie in his apartment and then I had to go to the train station to take the redeye train back to Nanchang.
One place I regret not going was the
Red Rock Gorge in
Chishui in
northern Guizhou. It appears on the map of the province in my guidebook, but it's never mentioned. A Chinese-British couple I met in Xingyi talked about it and said it was definitely worth seeing. Had I not gotten ill in Weining and had to shorten my trip, I may have traveled up there. You might have to change buses in a town called Zunyi, I'm not sure.
Okay, so there you have it! I loved Guizhou so much and I think it's one of my favorite provinces in China. I like to think of it as a much less touristy version of Yunnan or Sichuan. Here's my Photobucket album for Guizhou:
http://s114.photobucket.com/user/thumbtax/library/China/Summer%202012/Guizhou . Although I took over 150 pictures, I'm surprised I didn't take a lot more. But I think at that time I just wanted to enjoy the trip without being bothered with taking pictures of everything. Anyway, there are no new pictures, but I did reorganize the photos into smaller sub albums.