Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou, China. Photo / 123RF
Huangguoshu Waterfall in Guizhou, China. Photo / 123RF
In a China seldom explored, Graham Reid finds geological marvels that draw giggles from locals as well as tourists.
The rudest rocks I've ever seen are in southwest China. These saucy stones - one in the shape of some strange approximation of a woman's buttocks, the other an excited man-part right next to it - had the Chinese men beside me looking with familiar down-mouth, hooded-eye impassiveness. Their women giggled with covered mouths and looked away.
Then looked back.
The Exotic Stones Exhibition Hall in remote Guizhou province is an enormous collection of naturally sculpted rocks . . . although many fossils of fern fronds, fish and reptiles seem suspiciously shaped for effect.
There are no signs in English here because comparatively few outsiders make it to the provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan. The tourists are mostly domestic Chinese, and who knows what pornography they see. More than these hilariously graphic rocks, I'm sure.
This fascinating and sometimes spectacular area of southwest China - nearer to Nepal than Beijing - is rarely visited by Europeans, who happily traipse off to neon-lit Shanghai and the shopping streets of Hong Kong for their China experience.
But out here is another China, and you are constantly reminded of how different it can be.
One night in Xingyi - population 350,000 - I looked out my window at the intersection below. The traffic on the new six-lane road had thinned to nothing but the striking building opposite was a blaze of blue neon. I took a photo then went for another. Suddenly the neon and street lamps beyond were extinguished. Outside was a prosperous city in almost total darkness, aside from small flickers in houses and apartments.
What pulls Chinese tourists to these provinces aren't the bright lights but the natural wonders. The landscape is all waterfalls, gorges, mountains and rivers, most boasting such exotic and literal names as Thousand Peaks Scenic Spot (almost true, hundreds of low mountains rippling into the hazy distance).
Old ladies chatting in Guizhou. Photo / 123RF
And, since 1999, in "The Great West Initiative" (a typical Chinese clarion call to action), these provinces - together twice the area of New Zealand - are going foot-to-floorboard into the future. Villages and mountains are being moved so superhighways and spectacular bridges can carry visitors and investors into this picturesque part of the planet.
The plan is to "narrow the gap between the eastern and western regions" and "accelerate infrastructure construction, to strengthen ecological and environmental protection, to consolidate the basic position of agriculture, adjust industrial structure and develop the tourist industry with special characteristics".
Jargon for sure, but the evidence is everywhere - although international visitors might wonder just how much say locals have when a committee decides the new motorway will go straight through their village. And that happens.
Everywhere, small and large construction is in evidence. The convention centre opposite the enormous Hyatt Regency in Guiyang covers an area the size of a New Zealand provincial town. New high-rise hotels, shopping complexes and complete towns are appearing in the landscape, many conveniently located near the numerous scenic attractions. There's a tourism infrastructure of a kind although English is virtually non-existent even in some of the better hotels, which stock decent international beer, wines and whisky. One hotel also had cigarettes and little sex toys beside my mini-bar.
People here smoke in lifts, hotel lobbies, cars, bars and restaurants. It's how our world used to be. Unpleasant, actually.
China's "number one drink", Mao-tai is made in Guizhou town. It's rude to refuse a tipple and a good one isn't bad, however the local "wine" is usually liquified evil.
Guizhou Anshun Reservoir. Photo / 123RF
That Chinese affection for inspirational slogans is everywhere. My favourite was "Intoxicated with the Beauty of Guizhou" on the bus carrying me from one town-cum-attraction to the next.
But there are many intoxications of beauty. The landscape is breathtaking, Guizhou isn't short of mountains and these regions have astonishing waterfalls (Huangguoshu is one of the biggest in the world, regardless of how you measure waterfalls). There are spectacular valleys (have the camera ready at Beipanjiang Bridge if you don't suffer from vertigo) and beautiful lakes (Wanfeng is one of the 10 largest in the country). And the people.
The people of Guizhou and Yunnan are sophisticated and industrious with their cellphones and cigarettes in hand but they are, in my experience, scrupulously honest. Taxi drivers insisted I not tip and, like shopkeepers, diligently counted out my change. People in stalls, shops and local bars were amusing (never once did I feel laughed at) and conversations by common gesture were uncommonly enjoyable.
Half of the 50-something ethnic minorities in China live in these regions and they are visible, like the distinctively dressed Miao who have their own "autonomous prefecture" in the south.
No, I wasn't sure about going to an "ethnic minorities village" near Kunming when I was there - by myself , not part of indiscriminately camera-pointing tourists - but spent most of my time quietly watching kids laughing and rehearsing dances away from whatever tourism programme they might have been fulfilling. I sat with an old man beside a temple while two young girls danced for no one other than themselves, and later was moved to silence when "Lily" of the Yi people stopped in Stone Forest near Kunming to sing a traditional song.
China is always a mystery but we take places as we find them. I found southwest China different, easy, fascinating and always surprising.
And it has those rude rocks in that Exotic Stones Exhibition Hall. Erotic Stones more like.
CHECKLIST
Getting there: China Southern Airlines flies daily from Auckland to Guangzhou, then connects to cities in Yunnan and Guizhou.
