GuiZhou Summer 2014 (moved from old blog)

 A quick trip to GuiZhou

GuiZhou is a neighbouring province to Yunnan, whose borders are only about 5 hours away on the train. Several places had been recommended to me and so, when very bored in the office, I began researching and planning a mini trip.

It is not really near any other big tourist places so its relatively unknown, which means there is almost no information about places to go on the Internet. Most of our trip was guess work but it all worked out alright, I'll get to that later. 

We nearly missed our train, raced though the station, flew down the platform and threw ourselves onto a train. About 2 minutes later the train moved, we got to our seats a little stressed and more than a little tired.

Our first day was a rainy one but we were in the amazing MaLing Gorge, luckily, as we managed to stay out of most of the rain. Lots of the paths had overhangs so we stayed relatively dry. The humidity was crippling so coats were just not a good idea. The gorge is only about 15 minutes drive from the train station and we found it more by accident than anything else. To avoid the people yelling at us in the station for taxis we just got onto the nearest bus, which helpfully drove over the gorge and pulled over to let us off. A few minutes a walking and we were there. 

To make things even easier, the Chinese have built a glass lift down into the gorge so the whole thins can be done with very little walking. High heel friendly nature sights are becoming more popular. 

The gorge has a river running through it so we walked up one side of the river, crossed over a slightly scary and rickety looking suspension bridge and walked back up the other. The whole walk only took about an hour but we stopped for plenty of pictures. Slightly annoyingly the pictures really don't do the place justice as the rain stopped them from coming out as nice as it really was on the day. Every site I had found on the Internet with any information about the gorge referred to it as the Lost World of China and I think I would agree. A dinosaur would not have seem massively out of place here. 

As it was raining I think we were the only people in the gorge, which was fantastic. It did mean however that getting from the gorge to the hotel I had booked was looking like it was going to be almost impossible. We asked at the ticket booth about buses and taxis and she just kept saying impossible. Then she shouted over to the guy in the little shop next to the office and told him he had to take us to our hotel. 10RMB each. He had to make 2 journeys but he didn't seem all that bothered. 

Our hotel was so much better than expected. I had found it through another travel blog I had found, and googled a phone number. No idea what we were going to I was a little nervous but I don't think I am exaggerating when I say it was the best hotel I have stayed in. 128RMB for a double room I have paid more for rooms in hostels. We definitely fell on our feet with that one!

On the second day I had hired two drivers to take us to the scenic area. We still had slightly overcast weather but no rain, which was lucky as there was absolutely no cover in the park. We jumped on a golf cart looking thing and blasted round the park at break neck speed. We stopped about 5 times on the high road for photo stops but then sped through the lower parts. We were finished in the park after only a little over an hour. The drivers had given us their phone numbers and told us if we finished early we could call them and they would take us somewhere else. 

We called them and they drove us to a lake. The lake itself was not all that impressive but the drive there was through some very impressive dinosaur worthy scenery. We got to the lake but didn't stay very long as it was just a dock really. 

We went to find a place for some food and bumped into the drivers. One of them decided that the cook was too busy and was taking too long. So he went into the kitchen and just helped out. The food was fantastic and we stuffed ourselves silly with it. 
Then back in the car to the train station.