A ride through Wanfenglin, Guizhou's best-kept secret

South China Morning Post

a day ago

No matter how hard I turn the throttle, the most macho sound coming from this rental e-moped is a gentle whirring, not the throaty roar I am used to when renting motorbikes elsewhere in Asia. But even if green electric technology has stripped the growl from one of my favourite modes of travel, I have found somewhere in the southern Chinese countryside I can ride without a driving licence. And I have found a spot that seems perfect for motorised travel – offbeat and less visited.
Wanfenglin labourers cut grass and arrange it into haystacks. Photo: Chan Kit Yeng
In Guizhou's southwesternmost corner, Xingyi is a borderland that grazes Yunnan and Guangxi provinces. Closer to Yunnan's capital,
Kunming , than to Guizhou's Guiyang, what Xingyi lacks in the Miao and Dong ethnic-minority character found on the eastern side of this hilly southwestern province, it makes up for with jagged natural beauty.
Advertisement
Less than 20km south of Xingyi township is Wanfenglin, a fertile valley of rice fields and quaint villages hemmed in by limestone karst formations that look like the forest-clad humps of a half-buried giant camel caravan. In many respects, the scenery rivals that of Guangxi's main tourist draws, Guilin and Yangshuo, as well as the rock pinnacles of the Shilin Stone Forest, to the east of Kunming, in Yunnan.
Nevertheless, Wanfenglin ('forest of 10,000 peaks') remains under the radar. That may be because high-speed trains don't pass by yet. In fact, there is just one train from Kunming a day: the K1206, leaving Kunming at 7.58am and arriving at Xingyi at 1.58pm, taking six hours to cover the 285km. Alternatively, one could take a four-and-a-half-hour bus ride from the central Guizhou town of Anshun, 218km to the northeast.
A farmer in Wanfu village rakes maize in front of a mural-covered home. Photo: Chan Kit Yeng
In truth, Wanfenglin has not remained entirely untouched by tourism: it has been declared a scenic area, with an entry fee and opening and closing times – which nobody seems to collect or respect during my visit.
In the tradition of scenic areas across China, tourist shuttles – large golf-cart-like vehicles with open sides and a plastic roof – leave from the car park at the valley's northern end, where the No 301 bus from Xingyi stops. The hop-on-hop-off shuttle costs 120 yuan (HK$131) for a full valley circuit, making 11 stops at photo-friendly locations that include Upper and Lower Nahui villages and the Eight Diagrams Field: a large paddyfield whose canals and terraces form concentric circles and geometric patterns. The price includes access to Wanfenglin's main tourist viewpoint. Before the ride ends, the shuttle stops at a karst formation museum near the valley's central village, Wenbeng.
Unlike most other scenic areas in China, however, taking the shuttle bus is not the only way to get around Wanfenglin. Pretty much every little shop and guest house at the northern end of the 6km-long valley – where the hobo-chic Yi Yu Hostel, hemmed in by walls of golden, tall corn and paddyfields, has sparkling dorms and pleasant doubles – rents out pushbikes, electric mopeds and golf-cart-like three-wheelers. Costing 30 to 50 yuan per day, these electric vehicles are a dream come true for those who enjoy exploring independently, and mine has the word 'Sweet' stencilled above its front headlight.
A street-food vendor in Upper Nahui village, where most of the stores also function as vehicle-rental shops. Photo: Chan Kit Yeng
Eighteen years ago, when I was one of many foreign travellers exploring the domestic-tourist-free and hostel-strewn lanes below
Yangshuo 's otherworldly karst pinnacles, I wished a place that begged to be explored independently could offer the simple moped rentals available across neighbouring
Thailand and
Vietnam , which contributed so much to making those Southeast Asian hotspots appealing destinations. Today, I am realising that Yangshuo dream 850km to the west.