Guizhou Dream Trip, Day 1: Bijie City

In China, many southerners have never heard of the big city Bijie.

Big city?

Yes, it is a big city in Guizhou Province. How big is it? It is larger than Guangzhou City. The counties are so big that they belong to the same city and have different ethnic groups and customs, as if they were in another province. If one of our 3C gamers hadn't been from here, I might not have known about it until a long time later.

Our trip to Bijie City this time was not originally planned. After we left home, we were forced to modify our plans due to force majeure, so we traveled to Bijie City.

In the last few days of December 2019, Yuanyuan’s mother came to Guangzhou from Meizhou City. I always tell Yuanyuan that your mother is getting older and you need to take her out to play more before she can still walk. Your mother is the one who has contributed the most to this family, and she is also the one who has suffered the most injustice. It’s time for her to enjoy more happiness.

We want to make a travel plan that is also suitable for Yuanyuan Mama and has a bit of hiking nature. We have been to most places in Guangdong Province, and even the scenic spots we have not been to are all the same, which has made us lose interest. We want to go somewhere a little smaller, with unique scenery and less tourists. At first I didn’t agree to go to Mount Fanjing. I think Yuanyuan's mother is old, and asking her to walk up the stairs to the top of the mountain will cause great harm to her joints. Secondly, I'm worried that she won't be able to walk halfway through, and it will be difficult for us to carry her back down. A very difficult matter. Yuanyuan said that her mother had very good physical strength and would not lose to young men. Seeing how confident and persistent she was, I agreed to include Mount Fanjing in our plan.

 

I did a lot of research and revised different plans, and finally decided to go to Fanjing Mountain in Tongren City for two days, then to Zhaoxing Dong Village and surrounding attractions in southeastern Guizhou. Why does this plan have to change over and over again? Because we set off on the third day of New Year's Day, which is January 3rd. The place we are going to must have high-speed trains and high-speed trains passing by, and the high-speed trains and high-speed trains will pass by our next destination. Tickets were very tight during that time. Sometimes the train could go to point A, but there were no trains from point A to point B. If we chose to take the green train or bus, it would waste our little time.

For those who plan to customize their own travel plans, if your mode of transportation is large-scale transportation, such as airplanes, high-speed trains, or high-speed rail (it is highly not recommended to take the green train), you must check whether there are local buses passing through your next destination. Even if you want to transfer, you should check whether the transfer takes too much time. If not, or if you have to wait too long for a train to arrive at the transfer station, you can modify your plan. My suggestion is to go to the farthest destination first, and then arrange the scenic spots to be at the station you pass back. This saves time and money. Of course, planning like this requires a lot of patience and a lot of information, such as information on trains, attractions, and hotels. Sometimes you have planned that there will be cars between attractions A to B and then C, but maybe there are no cars from C to D. There are high-speed trains passing between all the attractions you visit. Maybe there will be no tickets for the last attraction on the day of return.

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Set off

Our plan was to find an inn and settle down at the foot of Fanjing Mountain in Tongren City on the first day, and then get up early the next morning to hike to the top. When the high-speed train was approaching Huaihua South Station in Hunan Province, we learned worrying news about Mount Fanjing on the Internet. Tourists who had booked tickets would be closed that day and refused to go up due to force majeure weather factors. You can choose to refund or postpone your ticket. In other words, whether tourists can go to Mount Fanjing the next day is a gamble. You can bet on whether the weather will be good or not. If we have enough time, we can take a gamble. Even if the door is closed tomorrow, we can postpone it to the third day. But our time is too tight, only 5 days. Another thing is that the weather forecast shows that it may be cloudy tomorrow. Yuanyuan and I went to Sanqingshan in June 2019, and it was cloudy that day. The entire mountain was shrouded in dark clouds, and it was impossible to see clearly the strange appearance of Sanqing Mountain, which became a great regret for me and Yuanyuan. We all said that we must visit Sanqingshan again in the future. After this regret, Yuanyuan and I vowed that we would never go hiking again as long as it is cloudy. Some attentive readers may ask why we didn't check the weather forecast before setting off. Because judging from our experience of traveling many times, the weather forecast is often more accurate until the day before, and it is not 100% accurate. Even if the weather forecast is cloudy three days in advance, it may be sunny on the day you go.

Yuanyuan and I used our mobile phones to search for other niche attractions in Guizhou Province on the high-speed train. We saw Caohai in Weining County, Bijie City, which is said to be the best bird watching wetland park in China. Judging from the photos taken by tourists in the past, the scenery seems beautiful and moving. There are also Shexiang Castle, Jiudong Tian Scenic Area, etc. in the surrounding area. Yuanyuan and I discussed it and decided to change our itinerary and come to Bijie City first. We found the ticket clerk on the train and changed our tickets from Tongren South Station to Guiyang North Station, and then took the train from Guiyang North Station to Bijie City.

There is a gaming netizen in Bijie City who I have known for nearly 10 years. His name is Dachang. Judging from the content posted in Moments, he is probably a civil servant. I have never asked whether he is engaged in explanation work, married or has children. I never ask others what their profession is or their marital status. I haven't met him yet. I told him on WeChat that I will be arriving in Bijie City soon. Are you free to have a meal with me tonight? His enthusiasm exceeded my expectations. He asked me what time I would arrive and he drove to pick us up.

Receive my sausage:

Our train arrived at Bijie Station around 16:20 in the afternoon. I found that the decoration of this station is brand new, there are few shops, and there are few tourists. Later, Dachang told me that this is a new station that was opened on the 10th of last month (December 2019). In other words, this site has been open for less than a month. I later learned that as a large prefecture-level city, Bijie City had no train station before. At first I thought this was a new site after the old site was renovated.

The altitude of Bijie City is more than 1,000 meters above sea level, which is much colder than Guangzhou in the south. It was also early January, and the coldness was as sudden as a surprise. I quickly opened my backpack and put on my down jacket. We waited 20 minutes for the sausage to arrive. He said that this hour was during the peak period and the road was jammed for a while. He was sorry for keeping us waiting.

I am 7 years older than Dachshund, but I look about the same. This is probably because he has been drinking for a long time and does not exercise, which makes his appearance and body look older than his peers. Dachshund is both bold and shy. From the way he spoke, I could tell he was a rough guy. I observed him carefully. After all, I had known him for nearly 10 years and this was the first time I met him. He said why do you always look at me like this? If you have something to say, just say it. Yuanyuan and I both laughed.

He first picked us up and took us to a hotel, which he said was owned by a friend and was not expensive, costing 165 yuan per room. After we took the elevator up and put our luggage away, La Sausage asked us what we wanted to eat, and I said anything spicy would be fine.

He took us to a restaurant called "Luxiang Renjia". His wife is already here waiting for us.

Dishes at Luxiang Renjia Restaurant:

Dachang's wife seemed worried about her husband drinking all day long. She said she had tried to persuade him many times. I've seen Dachshund always post pictures and videos of him drinking in WeChat Moments before, and tonight was no exception, he still ordered beer. I said I have stopped drinking, but this is the first time I’m meeting you, so I’ll drink a little with you. I asked the waiter to open a bottle for me, and I drank about a third of it. I also advised him not to drink unless necessary in the future, and told him about the harm that drinking would cause. He said he would drink as little as possible from now on. After I returned to Guangzhou, I found that he didn’t drink less, and he was still posting on his WeChat Moments about drinking as before.

Yuanyuan is a very talkative person, so with Yuanyuan by my side, I never have to worry about socializing. It seemed like everyone would fall in love with her just after being in contact with her for a while. Dachang and her wife chatted happily with Yuanyuan, and I only needed to add a few words from time to time.

I made an excuse to go to the bathroom and planned to buy the order. When I was preparing to scan the QR code to pay at the checkout counter, Dachang came over and stopped me, asking me what I was doing and how could I make you pay? I said it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter who pays the bill. He said no and told the cashier not to take my money. His attitude was so resolute that I would not argue with him.

After we finished eating, Dachang quietly told me that he would take me to find a young lady, saying that the girls there were so beautiful. I said forget it, thank you for your kindness, I will take them on a trip, it is not good to go to such a place at night. He said it was okay and asked me to find an excuse, saying that I could just go out to have a barbecue with him. I don't understand why he wanted to take me to a prostitute so much. Maybe people here like to express their hospitality in this way.

Since we all got up at around 5 o'clock in the morning today, we felt a little tired now and wanted to go back to the hotel to rest as soon as possible. Not long after dinner, we said goodbye to the sausage couple.

Yuanyuan told me that this sausage was quite interesting, and asked why he wanted to call it sausage. Isn’t there a nicer name? I told her that I didn’t know either. Our friends in the gaming community usually call each other by their first names. Some of them, even if they are close friends, don’t know each other’s names.

Yuanyuan and her mother slept in the same room, and I lived in a separate room. It seems that every time I go anywhere, the water heater in the room I live in always plays tricks on me, and this time it doesn't produce hot water either. It's really uncomfortable to take cold water on such a cold day, but southerners are used to taking baths every day. I had no choice but to bite the bullet and take cold water.

I told Yuanyuan on WeChat that washing in cold water was so exciting. She asked me why I need to wash in cold water? I said the water heater in the room was broken. She said it wasn't broken, but it would take a little longer to turn on the hot water, maybe 2 or 3 minutes.

We are in the city center of Bijie City today, and we haven’t felt like a foreign country yet. The scenic spot we are going to visit tomorrow is called "Caohai National Nature Reserve", which belongs to Weining Yi, Hui and Miao Autonomous County and is 128 kilometers away from the city center. When we get here, it feels like we are in another country.