Guiyang Travel Guide

Opposite the Long-Distance Bus Station on Yanan Xilu is a wide lane disappearing at an angle away from the roundabout (it's not one of the main roads from the roundabout). This is one of Guiyang's main extile markets. At the weekend (possibly also during the week?) this is filled with vendors selling textiles, some of which are hand-made and home-made abrics from Guizhou's many ethnic minorities. The shops on either side are the usual collection of clothing and shoeshops with huge loudspeakers blaring out music and the latest offers on socks and pants. It is all a lot of fun and a "real China" spectacle.

At the bottom (southern) end, the lane narrows and is extremely crowded - take care with wallets and cameras in this area. I was warned this by several people there. Also, in the rush, be careful where you place your feet as there are many steel stubs sticking out, half-broken steps and lumps of concrete reay to fell you.

Street food, located on Zunyi Road, just outside the train station. It seems these places stay open for a good portion of a Saturday night.

I can't say I highly recommend the food.

One of the specialties, fried potatoes, were good but undercooked.
Another noodle dish was just MSG and oil, with not much flavor.
And the first place we went, we had dumplings, which were pretty good, but nothing too special. Sometimes, such as in Hohhot, the street food has been great, but here I didn't find anything special, despite trying three different places.

The bottled tea tasted way off as well. So maybe avoid the food here, unless you're in the need for a quick meal.

Guiyang Airport is to the west of Guiyang city, on the toll road to Kaili (and eventually to Hunan).
Arrival and departure are straightforward and easy: it is a small airport with few facilities, but the upside is that it has yet to develop the "talk customer service - rip-off passenger" mentality of most other Chinese airports.

Note that if you are heading east from Guiyang (to Kaili, for example),you should be able to avid going into Guiyang. I undestand that there are coaches eastbound from the airport but I do not know where they stop. (I had a car)

I believe Guiyang is known by Chinese to be one of the more dangerous cities for theft. It definitely had a seedy feel around the train station area (and surrounding roads) at midnight. Train stations are hives for pickpockets, of course, but we had no problems there. One of the concerns a foreigner has is proximity of other people. In the west we're often used to keeping more space between us, where here that rule doesn't exist. That may add to the concern about pickpocketing, as we don't know who is just standing close and who is checking us out or on the prowl. Anyway, we had no problems, but does supposedly have that reputation in China, so keep that in mind.

Favorite thing: We had the hotel call a doctor for my daughter who had quite a temperature. It was a young woman who came and looked at my daughter -- and that was all she did. She didn't speak English so the receptionist came with her to sort of translate. It was rather weird because she didn't take her temperature, touch or ausculate or anything, but she wasn't a Chinese medicine doctor either. Recommended aspirin for the temperature and that was it.
We went to the local pharmacy to buy aspirin, but couldn't get the woman to understand so gave up. The drugstores in big major cities are easy, but in a place like Guiyang, it's best to have your own stuff with you.