Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya,

The Huangguoshu Waterfalls
A milky way in miniature and one of Asia’s largest.
Seventy-four meters high and eighty-one meters wide, it’s a supposed scenic marvel.
Did someone lodge a summons summoning China’s most annoying?
Today was one of those rare days when the Chinese were being simply TOO Chinese!

Over the last few days my sinuses have been playing up and I’ve been sneezing, suffering throbbing headaches and slipping in and out of my usual good mood and character. The Chinese Government also put out a search party to see if I was safe as their 'beer tax revenue’ was halved as I’ve been going to bed earlyish with headaches.

Today when I woke with a bad headache I knew that it wasn’t going to be a good day.

After a beef and rice noodle soup breakfast I headed to the long distance bus station and grabbed an eight Yuan ticket to Huangguoshu town. The journey took around an hour and after being dropped off at the totally un-required ticket office I once again felt that I should have stayed home in bed comforted by the silence of my room. There were different priced tickets to be purchased but I was there for a fun filled and long day so I grabbed the 180 Yuan Big Daddy Ticket.

Do you ever find it strange when as a foreigner a group of Chinese follow you?
It doesn’t happen that often but it wasn’t strange that it did today.

After leaving the ‘totally un-required ticket office that has been built in the middle of no-where and for no reason’ it seemed that everyone was a little confused as to what to do next. You would expect that the main ticket office would be somewhere near the main attraction as that is where everyone wants to begin their day. Here though it isn’t and as I was walking around in total confusion outside trying to find a signpost to show me the way to the waterfalls I noticed about fifteen people following me.

If I made an extra wrong turn so did they.
I then walked into an expensive rock tourist shop and so did they.

Finally I stopped and asked where they were going and thankfully a few could speak English and they told me that they were following me because they didn’t know where to go. After sneezing a few times I laughed and told them that I had no idea at all where the waterfalls were so they went about after asking and we were told we either needed to catch a local bus the further four kilometers.

Or spend an extra fifty Yuan on the ‘shuttle bus’ ticket.

Like me the Chinese were disgusted that the shuttle buses weren’t included in the Big Daddy Ticket that we had all purchased assuming so. Instead of following me to the roadside they seemed much happier to stay put screaming at the ‘Park Staff’. When I arrived at the Huangguoshu Falls Scenic Site what was the first thing that I found, yes, I found another ticket office which as usual here in China left me shaking my head in disbelief.

I wonder how many people spend the fifty Yuan on the shuttle bus ticket for four kms?
From there everything kind of went further downhill.

From the moment I stepped forward I joined the herds, gangs, packs, droves and crowds of people that were in it for themselves more than usual. Usually this makes me shake my head, giggle and move on but today I didn’t giggle, I didn’t giggle one little bit nor did I even offer a small snicker or chuckle! Everything that has become normal to me seemed to be one hundred times worse and not only because I had a bad headache and wasn’t in my normal good mood.

They spat, they pushed, they shoved, they littered and they argued.
And that believe me, was just in the first five meters from getting off the bus.

The Huangguoshu Waterfalls are found around forty five kilometers southwest of Anshun city and along with some eighteen other minor falls create the Huangguoshu cluster and they along with the several ethic groups in the area that give it a human touch have become not only Anshun city’s main attraction but also the biggest draw card for Guizhou Province.

Its flow is seasonally adjusted as there is a reservoir behind the waterfall.

The Doupotang Waterfall is found one kilometer up river to the Huangguoshu Waterfall and at one hundred and five meters across it is the widest of the entire cluster but sadly though at only twenty one meters high it is often neglected. For those like me who had totally had enough of the millions of selfish and self centered families around them, the Doupotang Waterfall was not forgotten, nor did it lay unknown it’s just that being so close to the Huangguoshu Waterfalls;

It lays too near the epic centre of the pushing, shoving, spitting, littering and arguing Chinese Tourist Whirlwind that the waterfalls seems to attract.

Seriously, I’d be standing in my tiny little spot (after waiting) trying to take a picture and an entire family would just roll in and shove not only me but everyone else out of the way and stand and smile as if nothing had happened. Happily though, just as they were about to have their picture taken another family would rock on in and shove the first family out of the way and then they would begin to argue between themselves.

I would them sneak in behind them and happily take my fair share of photos.
To then be shoved out of the way by a third family who would then join the first two.

Anyhow, between all the above and a million tour groups who as usual took up the entire pathway whilst their mega-phoned tour beauty yelled the history of the place from three centimeters away, I somehow managed to make my way along and around the pathway to where the tunnels that take you behind the water curtain began.

I even managed to find a spot for a second or two to take some happy snaps from most of the Waterfall Viewing Pavilions and Vantage Points as they like to call them.

Once I began to make my way through the water tunnels everything I have described leading up to this was multiplied by one million and somehow half of that million was by dumbasses who for some reason thought that it would be easy to go through the tunnels the wrong way even though there were staff directing and explaining to people why they couldn’t go that way.

But the Chinese Male knows that he is the only one (NOT) going that way so it will be easier to take photos of his family. He doesn’t think of the huge amount of people coming his way all trying to squeeze onto one pathway and through one tunnel all of who are also all fighting for family photo space!

Men huh!
Who needs them!

After finally fighting my way back up to the gardens at the top of the hill and then back out into the parking lot I met an American guy and his Chinese wife and daughter. We all wanted to skip the second waterfall and head to the Stone Village next so after his wife chatted to one of the staff we all boarded one of the buses that was heading that way.

Just as we started they began asking for ‘shuttle bus tickets’.
After we were assured we didn’t need them.

In the end they paid and I declined to pay fifty Yuan for a five minute bus ride and after getting off the bus I haggled with a sleepy taxi driver and got him down to fifteen Yuan to take me to the village and back. I think he only agreed to the price as he was assured another hour’s sleep when we got there and be paid for it and that’s a Win/Win situation!

Shitou Zhai Stone Village

For those who want to visit the stone village you don’t need to purchase the extra forty Yuan ticket at the ‘very un-required and out of the way’ ticket office.

The Bouyi Stone Village is actually found before the above ticket office and can be accessed by asking the Huangguoshu bus driver to drop you off on the way. It is around five hundred years old and its buildings are advertised as resembling architecture from Medieval Europe.

Though the village is very small I found it more than worth the visit as it allowed me to get away from the millions at my prior site all of whom seemed to have chosen to skip this precious little site.   As I walked around the village I found that many of the homes were actually empty and that most of the families had moved to the city.

Thankfully though there were still enough families who remained to keep it alive.

After checking out the village I then headed out and across the river where I found some of the most beautiful countryside in which children laughed and played in the small rivers and streams, filled with rice fields, buffalo and littered with small villages. As a back drop and to make all complete were southern Chinese beautiful karst limestone peaks.

Beers N Noodles toya…..shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was by Fear Factory
The album was ‘Transgression’
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