Fun things to do in Guizhou Sheng

We spent a whole night long dinner with the family, with his wife cooking delicious dishes and us eating them. Not long after we started our dinner, he called up his friend and started singing traditional Miao Minority songs, dancing and toasting with us his homemade rice wine. As the bottoms-up motion went on, they started teaching my Western friend with Chinese Kung-Fu and with us singing our mother tongue.

4 hours bus ride from Guiyang to Kaili, then another 2 hours from there to Xijiang, this less visit path really worth the travel. The transport from Kaili to Xijiang was not close to comfort at all. Imagine a 14-seater van got a ride with 24 human passengers, two chicken passengers seated on the floor, and several big packets of grocery. Xijiang is the largest Miao Village in China, with wooden residential houses built along green mountains and trails, and blue river running between them.

Capital of Guizhou Province, Guiyang is an elegant city, although surprisingly, there are many b# rip-off #, and things here are more expensive than Beijing. Besides the relaxing walk along Guiyang River in the city center, the most memorable thing in this city must be the bath house. With a mere RMB38, you can enjoy the shower, sauna, Jacuzzi, 45-minute body massage and stay over night in this place. It was far much cheaper than staying in a youth hostel which cost RMB60 for a dorm bed. This must be popular in Guiyang, as there’re many different nice and new concept of bath house: Korean, Thai, traditional Chinese, etc. Many of them are newly renovated and with good service.

It was Monday, when there was a weekly market selling all sorts of stuff, from herbs, pigs, food, clothes, ornaments, wine, to human hair. This was truly a memorable place.

The next morning, we had a fantastic day trekking around the mountains and taking pictures. Kids came by, surrounding me laughing and check out my digital camera.

By this time, we were getting tipsy. It was getting late, so we finally manage to go to bed after another half an hour of several “last drink” of the night.

After checking out a few hostels, we decided to sleep in a home-stay of Li’s. Li family, like many ethnic minorities I met in China, was friendly and laid-back.