GUIZHOU
PROVINCE

Guiyang
A Chinese proverb says of this city in the mountains of southwest China: no three feet of earth are flat, no three days are sunny, and no one as three taels of silver. Like most Chinese proverbs, it doesn't translate very well, but the idea is that Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province, is hilly, wet and poor.

One well-travelled Hong Kong Chinese described Guiyang as being 'one of the two poorest cities I have seen in China' (the other being Baoji, a railway junction in western Shaanxi Province). Hong Kong Chinese are just about the only people who are able to make such a comparison: because of its poverty and backwardness, the whole of Guizhou Province including Guiyang city is off-limits to foreigners. However, there is a railway which passes through the city, joining Chongqing in Sichuan Province with Liuzhou in Guangxi Province to the south.

On the off-chance that Guiyang is opened up to tourism in the near future, I include the following information.

The city itself has little to offer in the way of tourist sights except for a couple of parks. One of them, known as DIXIA GONGYUAN (under-ground park), has a waterfall with a cave behind it which, it is claimed, was the home of the mythical Monkey-King of Chinese folklore who features in the classical novel Xi You Ji (Travels to the West). The best English version of this excellent fairy story is, by the way, Monkey, translated by Arthur Waley and available as a Penguin paperback.

There is one good excursion from Guiyang, and that is to see another waterfall, Chjna's largest, about 60 miles (97 kilometres) west. The HUANGGUO5HU (yellow fruit tree) WATERFALL is situated close to the town of Anshan, and a tourist bus leaves from Xinlukou Zhan in Guiyang every Sunday morning; tickets for the round-trip cost eight yuan. Check the local branch of the China Travel Service for times.

How to get there and where to stay
I repeat, Guiyang is closed to foreigners at present, but it is connected to a number of other cities by plane, and there are regular trains. There are two hotels in Guiyang. The Yunyen Binguan (1 Beijing Lu) is quite a distance from the railway station. If you're on your own, take the No.1 bus, get off at the museum (buowuguan) stop and walk north for about three minutes. A room with a bathroom costs about ten yuan, and a dormitory bed four yuan. For the second hotel, the Jinqiao (gold bridge) Fandian, also take the No.1 bus and get off at the Daximen (west gate) stop. Double rooms rent for nine yuan a bed.