After we walked across the Beipan River Bridge, we made our way to view the peaks before we head off for lunch.
The Shuang Ru Feng is 12km north of Zhenfeng Town and unfortunately, we were faced with some disappointment when we got to the viewing point. Although the peaks are quite titillatingly named, it wasn't really a stimulating experience as I didn't even see the peaks at all. It was simply too foggy and we ended up only taking snap shots of each other and shots of a foggy landscape where we thought the peaks might be.
Luckily, Mr. Li or Li shifu (shifu = master) as we called him, our bus driver, had taken a picture of the peaks with his cel phone on his previous trip there and he was kind enough to blue-tooth it to all who had their cel phones with them and who wanted the photo.
Once you see the Shuang Ru Feng, you'll understand why it is called that. The structure of the top of both those peaks isn't man made, although no one really knows how they managed to look so symmetrical. Local villagers think the two mountains are sacred and go to the foot of the mountains to ask for blessings.
Li shifu's photo. Still a little foggy but at least you can see something.
My photos of the foggy landscape. Am probably shooting in the wrong direction too. Probably more interesting for the type of farming employed in that area and terrain rather than the peaks themselves.
If you want to see two nicer photos of the peaks checkout these links. Here and here. Actually, I encourage you to at least check out the pix in the first link. It shows just how beautiful the Guizhou landscape can look when the flowers are in full bloom, in spring, I think.
After this, it was off to lunch. After lunch, we took a short walk through the Shancha He Park just down the road from the restaurant. It's not a very big park, nor is it a particularly pretty park. But it does have this huge rock where the word "tiger" in Chinese is carved several times in the rock. It also had tons of spiders and webs on several trees and we had some fun trying to shoot those.
After our leisurely walk through the Shancha He Park, it was off to the Malinghe Xiagu (Malinghe Gorge) which was actually the main attraction for the day and a very nice one too. I'll leave that for the next post. =)
enjoy
Out of curiosity: How many photos did you take in total in Guizhou? Also, is it a place that can be visited on one's own (if one can't speak Mandarin or read Chinese)?
ReplyDeleteI think I shot about 1000 photos. :) Some of them weren't very good or usable so I discarded them. Some of them include pictures of people on the tour so those won't be going on the blog. I still have tons and tons of photos to put online. :)
ReplyDeleteI think that it is possible to visit Guizhou on one's own but it isn't as easy as visiting Shanghai by yourself. I've read some accounts of Western visitors who have visited Guizhou and they weren't with a tour agency. It'll probably take a bit of planning, at least more than the planning my friends and I did when we visited Shanghai and Suzhou by ourselves in 2005.
I think it would rather helpful to know Mandarin and to be able to read Chinese though because as far as I can tell not many people seem able to speak English in Guizhou.
Are you interested in visiting Guizhou?
Must admit that I wasn't at all familiar with Guizhou until reading about it on your blog. Clearly though, it seems to have captivated you. So I figure it might be worth adding to my list of "places to go to at some point in my life-time"! ;)
ReplyDeleteThe thing though is that I really don't like to go on holiday with a tour group. Yet that seems to be the only option for non-Mandarin speakers cum Chinese readers as far as visiting Mainland China (beyond Beijing and, maybe, Shanghai and Suzhou) is concerned. :(
Yeah, I rather liked Guizhou. =) I like scenic places more than the city actually so I was always more predisposed to liking Guizhou.
ReplyDeleteI think it is possible to visit China with no knowledge of Chinese but it certainly won't be easy. I can read and speak Mandarin but even I would hesitate when it comes to visiting parts of China without a tour group while I would happily do most of the Western countires, Austalia and Hong Kong by myself.
But China, IMO, is a really beautiful place with a lot of history and culture to boot and is definitely a place that should be visited some point in a person's life if they like travelling etc. Its mountains are often shrounded in mist and look so much like the shanshui paintings that I can understand why stories of men going into the mountains and becoming hermits and "xian" (deity?) abound in Chinese mythology, folk tales and stories. I was watching a docu on Huang Shan the other day and thinking wow... I can easily see the mysticism and spiritualism these mountains can hold for some people.
Well, if you ever want to visit Guizhou, let me know. I may be able to make it easier for you. =)
cheers