Rudy was lapping up the attention. “Anyone else want a photo with me?” he asked, causing a small frenzy of excitement amongst the assembled crowd of smartphones. People were queuing up to have their picture taken with him:I was slightly out of the way, doubled up in laughter at the way he was enjoying playing the crowd. When everyone had had their turn, he pointed to me, “Anyone want a photo with her?” Another burst of excitement and two old ladies push past the crowd and grab an arm each. Problem was, I couldn’t stand up because I was laughing so much:
I still can’t get my head round why someone would want their photo taken with me.
Eventually, photo opportunities exhausted, the small crowd dispersed. Rudy had a big grin on his face: “I could get used to this.”
“I couldn’t.”
It started at Tianxingqiao Scenic Zone, our first stop, with two Chinese students who’d kindly pointed us in the right direction amidst the unintelligible place that the bus had dropped us. When others saw them having their picture taken with us, they wanted in on the act. It took us ten minutes to get through the entrance barriers.
After our Stone Forest experience, we were better prepared – for lots of separate tickets, golf buggies, thwarted expectations, formal walkways. And crowds.
It was beautiful but “staged”, although it did mean that we were able to see parts other beers can’t reach:
It was done sympathetically, but totally over-engineered. And over-thought. For instance, the blurb here explained we were looking at “a fairy landing, showering and dressing”:
What do you mean “it looks like a tree?” Look again. Yes, ok, still looks like a tree.
And the language was very flowery:
I wondered if this was a cultural thing, helped along by the pictorial (and very beautiful) written language.
As ever, English translations were always welcome, occasionally amusing:
… And whilst sometimes something was lost in translation, I thought this one gained something in translating:
I duly resisted the urge to frolick.
Sometimes it was difficult to know what was natural and what was man-made:
And then we saw the stone waterfall deeper into the colossal caves:
Natural, surely. Incredibly impressive – the sheer scale of them, stalagmites and stalagtites and the cavernous insides. I did feel that the coloured light show actually detected from their beauty, but that’s how it was.
After the first option to exit the park (we took the longer route), the crowds disappeared and it was very pleasant.
Never seen a waterfall like this before (Yinliamzhuitan falls):
Then the golf buggy back:
… where we bumped into the students again who led us to a taxi for the ride to the main waterfall. “Grand escalator” read the signpost at the entrance. I was intrigued as to their interpretation of the words – a cable car, or pulley system, maybe? – but I wouldn’t find out until later.
At 77.8m high and 101m wide, the Huangguoshu Falls are “Asia’s number one waterfall”. It was, indeed, very impressive even outside the rainy season:
Best of all, we could go behind the waterfall (the “Water Curtain Cave”):
… where we saw our two student friends who were going in the other direction:
Sitting outside for a quick rest, a man came up in front of me, looked me straight in the eyes, and pointed alternately to me and him. I was ready for it this time. But it didn’t stop there – he also wanted a photo of me with his (rather baffled-looking) eldest daughter. When Rudy pointed at his youngest child and tapped his knee, the chap couldn’t believe his luck. Happy family portrait, with two very perplexed children (the youngest burst into tears soon after):
And then the gentle walk back:
… to the “grand escalator”. It was, um, a grand escalator: “the longest sightseeing escalator in the world” at 340m. Nestled into the forest. Absolutely nothing had been lost in translation:
After numerous visits to National Trust properties, I’ve got used to having to walk through the gift shop on the way out. This was an entire village:
By lucky coincidence our student friends appeared to join us on the buggy trip back, so we were able to join them in the taxi to where we thought we’d get the bus back to Anshun. Five minutes later we arrived at Doupotang Waterfall:
They wandered off, leaving us to explore the small site in our own time. Only then did it occur to us that these fortuitous meetings may not be entirely coincidental. They were looking after us. Subtlety, unobtrusively, reassuringly. As we approached the exit, they started lingering at the various attractions so we all got to the exit at about the same time. On the bus home, they told us the bus would be going to the railway station (we’d come from the east bus station), which is where we left them. We couldn’t thank them enough, but they just kept shyly saying, “You’re welcome”.
Once again we were touched and humbled by the kindness of the Chinese people.