I have never heard of Guizhou until i was introduced by a Kuching tour agency, Good Time Travel, and was lucky enough to be one of the 16-member tour group from Kuching during its inaugural trip to Guizhou recently. The trip started from Kuching in the afternoon with a flight to Kota Kinabalu. From there, we took the 9.15pm night flight and reached Kunming in southern China just after midnight at 1.30 am.
Early next morning, from Kunming, we boarded the high speed train which took us about 2 hours to reach Anshun, a city in Guizhou, which is famous for its natural geographical wonders including waterfalls, unique shaped mountains, gorges, caves and rock formations.
Huanggoushu Scenic Area The most famous waterfall in this region is the grand Huangguoshu Waterfall ( Yellow Fruit Tree Waterfall ), which is the largest in Asia, measuring 77.8metre high and 101-metre wide, situated across the Baishui River (White Water River). It is also one of the largest waterfalls in the world.
There is a vast area of viewing space for visitors to get a full view or take closer look at this spectacular waterfall, or simply to admire the “music” of the water as it pours down from great height.
The tourist guide told us that on a sunny day, one could see rainbows forming at the base of the waterfall. Unfortunately, we could not see this during our visit, as it was a cloudy day without strong sunlight.
The Chinese authority provided ample facilities to make the waterfall — which is high up on the plateau about 1000 metres above sea level — to be accessible by all tourists, young and old alike. The most impressive being the two long escalators about 154 metres each, one connecting the other to carry visitors to a vertical height equivalent to a 20-storey building, to reach the waterfall. There is a cave at the stone wall by the side of the waterfall known as Shuilian Tung (Water Curtain Cave ).
For those who are adventurous, they can venture into the cave, to have a closer look, hear and feel the natural wonder of this grand waterfall. However, this was not included in the itinerary of our sightseeing tour.
Doupotang Waterfall Another impressive waterfall that we visited was the Doupotang (Deep Slope Pond Waterfall), which is smaller but wider than the Huanggoushu Waterfall. It is about one kilometre upriver from the Huangguoshu Waterfall. It is105-metre wide and 21-metre high. There is a viewing platform constructed in front of the the waterfall for visitors to get a better view of the waterfall or to admire the sunset.
Tianxinqiao Scenic Area Located some six kilometres away from the Huangguoshu Waterfall is the Tianxingqiao Scenic Area. The most distinguished feature of this scenic resort is the abundance of water, rocks, forests and caves, which is also known as the “Water Stone Forest” and “Natural Bonsai” located on a river called the Sancha River.
The wind and water erosion has carved and shaped the Karst limestone here into various shapes and sizes with plants growing on them to resemble the potted plants of Bonsai. There are stone slabs placed in the water to form pathways.
There are 366 of them, each with a date of the year inscribed on it. It is fun to stroll along and find the slab that represents your birthday, under your feet. This area is also known as one of the locations for the filming of the popular Chinese TV Series “Xi You Ji” or “Journey to the West”.
The Maling River Canyon Scenic Area The Maling River Canyon Scenic Area is located about 334 kilometres southwest of Guiyang, which is the capital city of Guizhou province.
Here, visitors are given the option to walk down the concrete staircases or use the 73-metre high cliff elevator to get to the lower part of the gorge where pathways and trekking trails are constructed along the cliffs. This scenic area showcases the stunning effects of water erosion, which resulted in interesting rock formations of various shapes and colours. It is famous for its deep rifts, waterfalls and calcium tapestries. Maling River Canyon has a length of about 75 kilometres and an average depth of 200-400 metres.
The narrowest point is just about 50-metre wide. There is a bridge along the Xinyi–Guiyang National Highway known as the Maling Gorge Arch Bridge that spans across the highest point of the canyon. From above, the canyon looks just like a narrow crack while looking up from the bottom, one can only see a narrow strip of the sky.
The scenic area is also known as ‘Beautiful Scar of the Earth’ , a name given by some travel writers. It is estimated that there are around 100 waterfalls, large and small in the Maling River Canyon, each about 100-metre high, mostly stretching at some distance apart on both sides of the canyon.
There are also three suspension bridges crossing the river and allow easy access to trails between both sides. I managed to make a roundtrip along the paths of the cliff. It was quite an exhausting journey with steps going uphill and downhill, with twists and turns along the cliff. But the scenery, the fresh air, the soothing sound of the waterfalls and streams below, combined with the chirp
ing of birds in the jungle are rewarding enough for the effort.
Forest of Ten Thousand Peaks The Wanfenglin or Forest of Ten Thousand Peaks is one of the five most beautiful peak forests in China. Located some 7 kilometres from Xingyi City, it consists a series of unique shaped peaks along the mountain range and plateau. The whole Peak Forest is 320 kilometres long, about 50 to 80 kilometres wide, with combined area of 2000 square kilometres. It was gazetted as “National Geological Park” and has been awarded the “National AAAALevel Tourism Scenic Area” in China.
In order to promote these beautiful and colourful landscapes into tourism products, attractive names are given by the tourism authority to the peaks. Names such as “A Myriad of Stars Surrounding the Moon”, refers to the place where a small peak is surrounded by many larger peaks with paddy fields in between.
“The General Peak” refers to a rocky peak which resembles the head of an army general. “The Splendid Field” is the scene that I like the most, where it shows some houses built with paddy fields in between the hills, with the natural beauty of the place still intact. It symbolises the co-existence of human and nature in harmony.
The Ba Guo Field (OctagonalShaped Crop Field) and Dashun Peaks (made of six cone-shaped and pyramid-shaped peaks) have their own unique features. The Dashun Peaks are also known as the Lucky Peaks as the number six is considered as lucky by the Chinese. Roads are constructed along the side of the mountain range to enable tourists to stop at various viewing stations to take photos of the attractive landscapes around the area.
Wangfeng Lake The Wanfeng Lake at Xinyi City formed as a result of the construction of a hydropower dam at the Tiansheng Bridge downstream. It was given the name as it lies in the north of Wanfeng Forest.
There are many unique mountain peaks surrounding the lake, which stretches for 144 kilometres. One could admire the scenery from high grounds surrounding the lake or from inside the lake, by boarding a double-decker cruise.
There are a few cruises decorated with Chinese architecture designs that resemble Chinese temples, which added colours to the scenery. However, on the eastern side of the lake, there are some modern looks that give a difference feel where modern houses are built on the hill slopes.
There are many more attractions with unique geographical features in Guizhou, where tourists can take their sweet time to discover more, if they can afford the time and expenses.
Guizhou’s various tourist attraction is proof of how humans are able to conquer the challenging natural terrains by building roads, steps and pathwayss on the cliffs, constructing modern facilities like elevators and escalators, to enable tourists to the otherwise inaccessible destinations.
Guizhou is an amazing place to admire the beauty of nature and to refresh our minds. It is also the perfect place for shutterbugs to capture stunning landscape photographs.
