Last stop on my little Guizhou adventure is 镇远 Zhenyuan near the border with Hunan. It sometimes gets called “Zhenyuan Ancient Town” but the taxi driver from the train station assured me it really isn’t that ancient. But it’s still a lovely picturesque place, and just the right amount of touristy. That’s Chinese tourists mind you, during my whole stay in Guizhou I didn’t see any other westerners, or even speak any English which was pretty good for my Chinese practising. February is very off-peak though.
There’s no high speed train here: you have to either take the old low-speed train on the Shanghai-Kunming route or a long-distance bus. Either way you’ll have an interesting cultural experience, and I like the feeling of remoteness.
The older part of town is across the river from the part with the train and bus station, and the waterfront above is quite photogenic.
On the day I arrived there was quite a dramatic change in the weather and the temperature plummeted to around five degrees. Who’d have thought it would be this cold so far south?! Turns out temperature is function of altitude and season as well as latitude…
First thing I did was climb up the big mountain behind the town. On top is this Miao “Great” Wall. Not sure what’s “great” about it, it mostly resembles a regular city wall. Anyway it’s fun to walk along and the mountain scenery is very pretty. After a while the wall falls away into ruins and path quickly disappears. It might be possible to venture further into the mountains but it looked pretty wild.
On the other side of the river is a tourist attraction called 青龙洞. I thought 青 meant a greeny-blue colour but it’s translated here as “Black Dragon Cave”. I also thought it might be a cave, but it’s not, it’s a temple built into the side of the mountain. It’s really good fun spending an hour or so exploring the little grottoes and pavilions. And as you get higher you get some excellent views over the town.
My favourite place in Zhenyuan is actually just out of town, called 龙池 or “Dragon Pool”. The titular pool is at the end of 4km-ish walk through a river valley. You can get there by taking local bus number 7 from the western end of the old street. Just ride it all the way to the “scenic area” final stop.
The trail itself is quite good with some impressive cliffs and waterfalls. I didn’t see any wildlife though. All the while you’re following the river upstream until it suddenly stops at this perfectly still pool which water flows out from but not in to?!! :-o
No idea how deep it is but it’s incredibly clear and you can see dead branches and other things standing vertically up waaaaay down. I guess the water must come from inside the earth somewhere. Weird.
Anyway I really liked Zhenyuan. I would go back, but probably in summer or later in spring. Because there were no boats operating I missed out on seeing the impressive sounding “Wuyang Three Gorges” down the river. Although that might be named along similar lines to the “Miao Great Wall”. :P