Day 6: Guizhou Parks, Part 3: Waterfalls

Upon returning to the bus after lunch, we met an unwelcome sight: the hood of the bus was open and the driver was feverishly working away. Our first thought was that we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, a couple of hours from Guiyang. In some ways, it was much worse than an engine problem: the air conditioning wasn't working during the hottest (95+) part of the day. To make matters worse, the windows on the bus were sealed shut. Since the bus was operable, the driver told us to load up, that we were leaving. At first, the driver left the doors open, so we could get some fresh air, but once we really started moving, he closed the doors. All of a sudden, it felt like we were in an oven: super hot with no ventilation. I could feel the sweat poring out of me. People began demanding that the driver open the doors. Finally, he relented and we drove for the next 5 minutes with at least a little bit of ventilation. On such a hot day, it was a little weird to get off the bus and find that the ambient temperature was a relief. A short walk through a garden brought us to the main attraction at this stop: the Huangguoshu Falls (or Orange Falls, in English). At 74 meters tall and 81 meters wide, this is the largest waterfall in Asia. Trails ran along both sides of the canyon to the bottom. Another trail went behind the waterfall. A very long and steep escalator even ran to the bottom. We took a trail that ran along the side of the canyon wall before disappearing behind the falls. Twenty years ago, Dr. Liu spent a summer living in the village above the falls and he told us stories about swimming underneath the falls, before the tourist infrastructure had been developed. Unfortunately, not only is swimming not allowed, but I'm not sure if the water is really clean enough to swim in. After exploring all around the the falls, we returned to the top of the canyon to sit in the shade and enjoy some ice cream, before heading back to the bus/ We returned to a cool, air conditioned bus, which had been repaired by the bus driver while we had been busy sightseeing.

Our final sightseeing stop was at another smaller waterfall, which while also pretty interesting and beautiful, paled in comparison to the Huangguoshu Falls. However, this stop held another attraction for us: peacocks! None of us had ever seen peacocks in the "wild" before, and even though these peacocks were fairly tame, they were free to fly away if they so chose. Naturally, we all had to take tons of pictures of the peacocks, even Dr. Liu.

We finished the day with a 100+ km bus ride back to Guiyang, only stopping twice more for shopping.

Huangguoshu Falls

Bamboo

View from behind the falls

Smaller falls

Peacocks!

Day 6: Guizhou Parks, Part 2: The Stone Forest

Our next stop on the whirlwind tour of Guizhou's parks was a walk through a place we called the Stone Forest. This stop was about the journey and not the destination, as the trail itself was the destination. The trail started by crossing over a river and descending down into a canyon. Once there, we walked on stepping stones over wet areas, up and down stairs carved into the rocks, over a somewhat shaky suspension bridge and through tight rock cavities and larger caves (very much appreciated on this hot and humid day). Some of the sights along the way included the steep hills on either side of the canyon, streams and waterfalls, rock formations, caves, and the forest, especially the old trees. The walk ended with a cable car ride across a ravine and then lunch at a restaurant overlooking the river.

At the beginning of the trail

Rickety bridge across a ravine

Looking down the ravine

Caves

Coming out of the cave

Waterfalls

Neat old tree

Another waterfall

Cable car ride

Day 6: Guizhou Parks, Part 1

Today was the day all of us mountain kids from Montana were looking forward to. We were finally going to get out of the cities and visit 3 parks outside of Guiyang. Because the farthest park was over 100 km from Guiyang, we left our hotel very early in the morning and drove to another nearby hotel to meet our tour group, and by 7:30, we were on our way. Almost as soon as we were out of town, our tour guide, a young guy wearing a T-shirt covered with nonsensical writing in English, began talking loudly and almost non-stop over the bus speaker system. I thought he was just giving a little background on the sights we'd be seeing, and then he'd stop, but no such luck. He seemed to drone on and on forever, until we arrived at our first stop: a needless detour to a large souvenir shop in the small and somewhat gritty city of Anshun. Dr. Liu had already warned us not to buy anything, but we did take a quick tour of the shop before heading outside to hang out while everyone else in our tour group continued their shopping. Forty-five minutes later, we were finally back on the road and back to the monologue. I didn't understand a word of it, and tried not to pay attention to him. Many of the Chinese tourists, Dr. Liu included, were asleep. At least the scenery was incredible: karst mountains and terraced fields and very green. We were visiting during the rice planting time, with lots of farmers in the fields, either planting rice or plowing the fields with water buffalo.

The view from the bus

After a long drive over some crazy mountain roads (and more villages, fields, farmers, and mountains), we arrived at the Bouyei (an ethnic minority) village of Shitou Zhai and the Longgong (Dragon Palace) Caves. The underground caves, which were only recently discovered, are huge, but only about 1 km is open to the public. The best part, though, is that the caves are partially submerged and the only way to see them is in a boat! The portion of the caves we saw were pretty cool, although kind of like the more commercialized caverns in the Shenandoah Valley, a variety of different colored lights were used for illumination. No music, however.

Entrance to Caves

Inside the Cave

Back into the Daylight

After the too-brief boat ride through the caves, we returned to the village, where some Bouyei girls had me try on a traditional costume over my clothes. At our bus, several of the older village women had set up shop, offering peanuts and such for sale. I took one woman's picture and, in exchange, I had to buy some peanuts from her. Then, every old woman there was shoving things in my hands, trying to get me to buy from them.

Bouyei Girls

Me in Costume

Bouyei Woman

Village of Shitou Zhai

Day 5: Xi'an and Guiyang

The whirlwind tour of China continued. After spending just 2 days in Xi'an, it was on to Dr. Liu's hometown of Guiyang. Just like in the US, a 2 hour flight takes up most of the day, by the time you leave to go to the airport, check-in, wait around for your plane, fly, get your luggage, etc., so not much sightseeing today. In Guiyang, we were met by Dr. Liu's brother, Didi, and his wife, who were to be our drivers while in Guiyang. This particular brother is the head of a company that makes CDs and DVDs, but he took a few days off to drive us all over the place.

I was really looking forward to seeing Guiyang, partly because it's Dr. Liu's hometown, but also because it had been described as very beautiful (mountainous and green) and off the beaten path. Dr. Liu also had described it as poor, but that was not evident when we first arrived. Our first night, we walked around the downtown area, including the central square with the Wal-mart beneath it and the Chairman Mao statue across the street.

Chairman Mao
Wal-mart Entrance
Downtown Scenes

Day 4: The Big Goose Pagoda

The visit to the Terra Cotta Museum concluded with a running of the gauntlet of souvenir vendors. While the vendors everywhere were rather aggressive and in-your-face, the vendors at the Terra Cotta Museum deserve a special mention. Outside the first vendor, we were able to bargain for souvenir terra cotta soldiers for 1 yuan (about 13 cents). When we went inside to pick up our 1 yuan soldiers, the salesgirls were insistent that we did not want those soldiers, we wanted the 80 yuan soldiers. The 1 yuan soldiers were cheaply made, while the 80 yuan soldiers were of much better quality, which they demonstrated by banging them loudly on a metal plate. They also would not leave us alone to look at the soldiers and decide for ourselves which ones we wanted. A couple of us ended up walking away because they were so annoying. Carrying on, we had old women shoving soldiers in our hands, trying to get us to buy from them. I finally ended up buying 2 sets of soldiers from a woman who agreed to my 10-yuan-for-each price. Despite the pushy sales people, I think everyone ended up with at least one set of soldiers.

After the Terra Cotta Museum, we headed back to Xi'an to visit the Big Goose Pagoda. The pagoda, a Buddhist temple, was built around 648 AD to honor Xuan Zang, one of the first Buddhist monks in China. He traveled to India and obtained Buddhist scriptures in the original Sanskrit and returned to Xi'an to translate them into Chinese. The Big Goose Pagoda is on the grounds of the larger Da Ci'en Temple, which is still used today. After wandering around the grounds, several of us climbed the 7-story pagoda. On each floor windows look out in each of the four cardinal directions, offering spectacular views of that part of the city.

Entrance to the Temple Grounds

View from the top of the Pagoda

More Pictures

I've decided to work on posting all of my China pictures on the internet, but it's going to take some time to get all 800 uploaded. All pictures will be posted here. I will continue to write about my trip and post the best pictures here.

Day 4: The Terra Cotta Museum

Outside the Terra Cotta Museum

As the legend goes, while digging a well, peasants discovered an underground vault which turned out to contain the Terra Cotta Army. Today, 3 covered pits are still being excavated, which may contain up to 3000+ soldiers. Each soldier has individual features and, when first excavated, brightly painted. Exposure to air rapidly fades the paint, so most of the soldiers are a yellow earth color. The army contains soldiers of a variety of ranks and positions, but is not limited to just soldiers. Horses and chariots have also been found, as well as weapons of the day (longbows, swords, etc.).

The first pit is the largest of the three, and I believe, the oldest. Most of the soldiers that have been uncovered have been found here.

The 1st vault

Solidiers

Soldier and Horses

The second pit we visited was much smaller, and few soldiers and horses have been found here.

Smaller pit and horses

The third pit is almost as large as the first, but, of the remains that were evident, most seemed to be in pieces.

The third pit

Remains

The most amazing part of the Terra Cotta Army is that it is thought to only be a small part of a much larger underground complex.