Thursday 9 October 2008

Chongqing to Guiyang



We checked out of the comforts of the JW Marriott in Chongqing the day before yesterday to begin a 1,000km road trip to Kunming, following an old road that my parents took in April 1944. Max and Audrey were driven in a dilapidated Ford V-8 pickup truck, running on alcohol which they had to carry with them and they reached Kunming after 6 nights on the road. We're traveling, like them, with a local Chinese driver but also with our bilingual guide Sun Ying and in a smart Buick minivan. We plan to spend 3 nights en route before reaching Kunming.

We left Chongqing at 11am - driving through endless, dismal built-up districts before reaching more open country after 45 minutes. We're following a road which, according to our driver Mr Huang, was built during the war to link Kunming to Chongqing - becoming a vital route when free China's main supply base was in Yunnan at the landing point for Hump air transport from India. The road climbs quickly into dramatic mountain terrain, and plunges down again into a narrow river valley dotted with villages. We stop for lunch in the nondescript county town of Qijiang, eating at a fast food restaurant attached to a supermarket that could be MacDonalds - but the food was much tastier, beef noodles in a spicy star anise broth. Then we climb higher and the country looks quite alpine with firs and high peaks as we enter Guizhou province. After scaling one of many summits, the road drops down through a narrow gorge and we reach the village of Songkan, which was where Max and Audrey spent their first night on the road. They stayed at an inn, where Max was plagued by bed bugs but which Audrey found 'not at all bad'. We asked around and heard that there was an old inn near the river. It's a pretty spot with the village strung out along the valley, in the shadow of the mountains, and as we drive on we see long tables of people gathered for a feast (like Palio eve in Siena).

We're pressing on to the city of Zunyi for the night, which should have a decent hotel, but we make slow progress, winding up and down the mountain road's many hairpin bends. Though the scenery is stunning, the light is fading in the late afternoon and we decide not to tackle a final summit famous for its 72 hairpin bends - Max and Audrey drove this after their night in Songkan, but we opt to join the new highway to take us on to Zunyi. Just as well, because it begins to rain (it's been cloudy and drizzly all day), and it takes us an hour from the highway exit to find the center of Zunyi and we don't get to our hotel until 8pm. It seems a dismal city of half a million people, most famous for being the site of the 1935 meeting which established Mao's position in the Communist leadership before the Long March. But we're not in the mood for sightseeing, and we grab a meal in the nearest restaurant to our rather depressing hotel (an equally depressing pizza place).

Breakfast the next morning is no better - when I ask for coffee in the hotel restaurant I'm told: "No, today not". We leave the hotel at 9:30, and ask our long-suffering driver to stop at a nearby 'European coffee shop' - not exactly Starbucks (who have now reached Chongqing, by the way), but a welcome cup of fresh coffee to get us going. Max and Audrey's next stop was the village of Shangji. On my map, there was no road marked in that direction but Ying and our driver have discovered an old road, which we head for, avoiding the highway which links Zunyi to Guiyang. This proves to be an entrancing drive, mainly through farm country with rice, maize, green vegetables and red chillies grown in abundance on every square inch of land. The paddy fields are golden-green and conical stacks of ricestalks (like little round haystacks) cover the fields that have been harvested (sorry folks, I can't upload Mike's great photos from here). The landscape is different from the day before - we're now into the curious landscape of limestone karst peaks which travelers always comment on.

The villages are dirt poor, and most people are probably subsistence farmers. Some farmhouses are old, half-timbered buildings with wooden shutters and doors, but there's very little attempt at the decoration or wood carving which I've seen in other rural provinces such as Yunnan or Shanxi. The highlight of the day is our lunch stop in Shangji. It's market day, and the county town is thronged with people, buying and selling food, clothes and every necessity of life up and down a long, narrow street. Mike, in his bright red jacket and standing a head taller than most locals, is a great object of curiosity. We are escorted by a helpful schoolgirl to the best noodle shop in town and have a delicious bowl of noodles with goat meat. The 'restroom' is another story...I'm shown out to the barn where goats are kept at night...say no more.

We leave Shangji just before 2pm, and soon reach a spectacular, deep gorge where the road crosses the Wujiang River. It's not mentioned in my guide books, but a couple of resort hotels are being built there - Guizhou province is trying to develop tourism. Then it's on to Guiyang, the provincial capital, through more lush country and pine-clad hills, and also through the ugly town of Kaiyang where we join a faster road.

Max and Audrey spent two nights in Guiyang (then Kweiyang), staying with a Major from the British Military Mission. I don't know how big it was then, but it's now a city of 1.2 million with numerous new highrises. We're at the Shengfeng Hotel, which is pretty good, and we enjoyed a Chinese dinner at a restaurant known by Sun Ying. Afterwards, we walk along the river bank - it could almost be the Paris quais, until we come across the enormous statue of Mao and the locals enjoying a Friday night dance in the open air in front of him.

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