China Girl: August 2007

Today we went on another bus tour around to sights around Guiyang. This trip, however, was much shorter and did not involve a highly annoying tour guide or broken air conditioners. We were picked up at our hotel early in the morning and spent the first hour of our "tour" picking up other sightseers at their hotels. We then headed out to our first stop: another boat tour through a cave. Even though we had been through several caves at this point, I still wasn't tired of them. We first took a boat through a short cave with lots of colored lights everywhere. When we came out of the cave, we continued our boat tour along the river. We disembarked at the entrance to another portion of the cave. We walked through this section of cave and discovered that the Chinese tourists aren't taught cave etiquette, such as don't touch the formations. The Chinese made a point of touching every stalactite and stalagmite within reach. Pieces of the formations had also been broken off. We Americans were pretty surprised by the shoddy treatment of features that took millions of years to form, but the Chinese, tour guide included, didn't seem to care.

Rice Paddies

Walking to the Cave

Inside the Cave

The next stop on our itinerary was a Bouyei minority village. The Chinese tourists weren't very interested in visiting a poor, rural village, but the Americans were more curious. The village was set into a hillside above a river, with buildings almost on top of each other. Buildings were connected by alleyways and narrow stairs. Chickens wandered freely throughout the village. A pig housed in a small shack next to one of the alleys scared a couple of us when it snorted at us when we walked by. Dr. Liu is friends with one of the village women, who served us tea and sang us a traditional song of welcoming and friendship. After a quick stroll around the village, it was back on the bus.

Scenes from the Bouyei Village

The third stop was a Ming-era village that had been preserved along the lines of historic Williamsburg. Dr. Liu had a terrible headache, so he elected to stay on the bus while the rest of us toured the village. Unfortunately for us, we were left without a translator, and were unable to understand or appreciate everything we were seeing. We did pick up that a famous scholar once lived in the village, which is one reason why the village is a tourist destination. We spent our time wandering amongst the different sights, along narrow streets lined with souvenir vendors and small restaurants, as well as more important and historic buildings.

Ming Village Street

Outside a temple in the Ming Village

After the Ming village, we headed back to Guiyang proper and to a large and beautiful park near the outskirts of the city. Dr. Liu told us about coming to this park when he was young and swimming in the creek.

Cooling Off