After we visited the Buyi Tribe, we made our way over to Wanfenglin (万峰林).
Locals in Guizhou are proud of the beauty of their province and a story they repeat often is that of the visits the famed Chinese explorer and geologist Xu Xiake made to the province. The guides mention him often and make several references to what he said about the beauty of this region. I don't seem able to find out too much about his writings in English on the internet but this webpage does have some photos of Wanfenglin and a translation of what Xu Xiake said about this particular location in his journals. He said, "There are countless mountain peaks on earth, but only the peaks here (in Wanfenglin) stand together to form peak forests. Stretching for hundreds of kilometres, Wanfenglin or Ten Thousand Peak Forest is a natural wonder in southwest China."
Check out these pictures and even on a foggy day, you can see numerous peaks in the distance.
When we arrived at the park, we were led to several buggies which seat about nine people excluding the guide and the driver. The buggies will take us up the side of a hill and from there we get a good view of the peaks and the terrain of the valley below.
At one point on the hill, we're supposed to be able to see six peaks all lined up but it was too foggy and we only saw about three of them.
The peaks in the distance aren't the only things of interest. The villagers practice terrace farming and the size and shape of their plots depend on the terrain of the land. Viewed from a location that's high up, like the hill we were on, you can see all the pretty patterns these plots of land make when seen as a whole.
Occasionally, the earth will give way and a funnel hole will form. One of the more famous patterns that's formed by this funnel hole is the pattern known as "Shenzhou Bagua" (神州八卦 Chinese Eight Diagram). Check out these pictures.
One other thing of interest in Guizhou is the architecture of some of the traditionally built homes here. Most of Guizhou is mountainous and made up of a kind of hard substance called karst. Many villages use pieces of karst to build their houses and if you take a look at the previous entry on the lake who's name I don't know, you'll notice two photos of the same house made up of pieces of rock. That is how many of the houses in the villages of Guizhou are built.
The other thing of interest is that many of these houses have a receptacle at the top to hold a large amount of water. The local guides told us that these receptacles of water help to control the temperature in the house. On hotter days, the water will help keep the houses cool, on colder days they help to keep the houses warm. I managed to snap a photo of it while I was on the buggy. It's not a terribly good photo but you'll get the picture.
Also, here's a couple of pictures of the plots of land from the ground level.
After we reached the entrance of the park, we had to wait for the rest of the group to catch up with us. While there we took snapshots of each other and I also took a picture of this guy hanging from some rope between two poles and he was fixing something. I don't really know what he was doing but it made for an interesting photo so here it is.
After this we'll make our way to the Museum of Ethnic Marriages for the last stop of the day before dinner. I didn't take any pictures of the exhibites but did shoot a couple of shots of some flowers and the alley way which I'll post up in the next entry.
That's it for now, enjoy.
p.s. While looking for information on Wanfenglin, I came across this webpage (I also used it for the Xu Xiake reference above). The photographer took some pictures of a lake called Wanfenghu and I'm thinking this might be the lake that I was on. This lake is a man-made lake that was formed by the creation of a power plant, just like the lake that was I on.
