Fenghuan and into Guizhou — The road liss traveled

Back to back ancient towns! I did read they were different enough that it’s worth going to both, and I basically agree with that assessment. Fenghuan is a much bigger town that lines both sides of a river for at least a mile, plus the old town stretches several blocks back inland with alleys and shops and hotels. It’s an old town within a normal town. If you walk far enough away from the river and you’re in just another ordinary Chinese city. The nice thing is you don’t have to pay admission for this one, which for China is almost shocking. I was able to get a room with a river view for around $18, not bad.

super basic, but clean, comfy and a nice view

The town does look pretty cool, like some sort of fishing village you might see in Lord of the Rings or some fantasy movie. It’s got all of these old looking wooden building built on stilts jutting up from the water. There’s also some elaborate bridges and a watchtower.

From walking around it appears the most common thing to do here is play dress up! There are these combination clothing rental/salons everywhere, so you can rent your traditional clothing, get your hair and makeup done there, and it can include a professional photography package as well, which seemed to be a popular option! So many women out with their photographers! For the clothing most people wear the Miao minority clothing, which is known for it’s bright colors and elaborate silver headdresses, or traditional Chinese clothing, Hanfu, usually from the Tang, Song, or Ming dynasties.

In the last decade or two the government realized a lot of traditional Chinese clothing people often wear was from the Qing Dynasty, hence Manchurian (not Han) in nature, so there has been a big push to wear Hanfu - Han clothing that are from Han Chinese dynasties like the Ming, Song, Tang, etc. Kinda funny. Visiting other east Asian countries I thought this type of dress up thing was really big in Japan and Korea, but China really takes the cake! And the Chinese have been very quick to adopt the Hanfu, as there might not be another country on the planet that is as proud of their ancient history as China!

This classic style of dress, the Qipao, used to be the official dress of China, but it’s not Han, it’s Manchurian!

I was just enjoying taking in the scenery, walking around, taking a few photos, having a tea and reading my book along the river (which is about a minority group coming to age in Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in the 80’s to early 90’s) I find the minority groups quite a bit more interesting than the Han Chinese. Han Chinese is just kind of a boring monoculture. Although this love of cosplaying minority groups is definitely an new-ish thing that certainly never happened when I was there in 2012. Hell in 2012 a lot of women wouldn’t even smile in photographs and would put their hand over their mouths IRL when laughing to display modesty. A lot has changed!

Overall these type of ancient towns are a one night maximum for me, as I don’t care about the dressing up, shopping, minority dancing, but I do enjoy a unique setting for taking photos, even if it isn’t authentic. I’d take my camera out again around sunset when the light was good and then wait for all of the lights the turn on. Like Furong town, Fenghuang is also very impressive when the lights come on, the whole river bank glowing. Plenty of nice photos to be had.

The next day I was off on a bus into the province I used to teach, Guizhou. Not far from the border with Hunan is a rock column that juts out of the greenery of the mountains called Fanjingshan, a two hour bus ride to the nearest big city, and then another hour long bus ride to the park. I couldn’t help but laughing driving through the town, they had a cosmetics store with the English name of She’s Yeast. Talk about a name that would not fly in the English speaking world hahaha. Ahh good ole Guizhou, still coming up with ridiculous English names for stuff.

As for the park, I dropped off my stuff at the hotel, scarfed down some dumplings and went into the park. As usual it’s a shuttle bus and cable car to the top type of set up, but you could hike up this one if you wanted, so that’s what I would do. They tell you that it takes 4 or 4.5 hours to get up to the top, but what I’ve learned is you can basically halve Chinese recommended hiking times if you’re a good hiker. Which the Chinese are not. Out of the few percentage of people overall doing the hike (at least 95% take the cable car I’d guess) it seemed like a good portion of them were actually dying a slow terrible death on this hike up hahaha. They also wear pants and jackets, which is crazy to me. Anyway I took almost no breaks and it took it me about two hours to power it up to the upper plateau.

The highlight of being up here is climbing this rock spire that I had mentioned. There’s actually two of them next to each other, connected by a bridge at the top, but you can’t really get a good angle from anywhere to see it. That’s why the drone photography looks a lot cooler than what you see in person!

What I didn’t realize was you’re supposed to scan this QR code that gives you a number in the line, and your own barcode to scan going through the entry gates. I tried to walk right through, oops. So after getting my number in line it was a little over an hour to wait before getting to go up. And of course the line is so clogged up you barely move. I think in the first 30 minutes we moved about 30 meters. Welcome to China. I guess near the top it’s steep with a bunch of chains to help you get yourself up, single file, so that where the huge backlog comes from.

I did meet some people in line, students, who were curious to know what a foreigner was doing in Guizhou, as this province still gets very very few foreigners. Zhangjiajie and those ancients towns have been all over social media in the last year or two, so you see quite a few foreigners there, and people don’t randomly come up to talk to you. But once you cross into Guizhou, it’s a different world. I hadn’t done a single photo OP the whole trip, but on Fanjingshan I did at least a dozen! Most were on the way up, me posing while literally dripping in sweat, gross. But anyway it’s always fun to talk to the students who are confident enough in their English to approach. Young speakers who have mostly learned English from reading and writing have a particular way of speaking that I find endearing.

Here’s what the drone photo looks like - obviously not my photo

We finally get our way past the chains and up to the top. The scenery hasn’t changed much, you get slightly better views of the lush green hills/mountains, but you’re at the top! I helped one student make a little video for her social media, and then it was back on down, as it was getting a bit late. No time for hiking down, cable car it is. And then shuttle bus, and off to take a shower and surprise some restaurant owners by walking into their shop. Long day!