Eight Days of Guizhou Highlights Tour

Day1 Shanghai-Tongren-Jiangkou

Arrival at Tongren Fenghuang airport, picked up by your guide and driver, move to Jiangkou county and check into your hotel Fanxing Hotel. Jiangkou is a county, located at the foot of Mountain Fanjingshan, which was announced to be listed in the World Heritage Lists by the UNESCO in 2018 for its profound Buddhist culture, biological diversity and epic summit views.

Overnight in Jiangkou

Day2 Fanjingshan-Zhenyuan

•Good morning! After breakfast, your guide and driver will meet you at your hotel. Then, you will be driven not far to the entrance of Fanjingshan to discover this world well-known fantastic holy mountain along the popular south route for about 6 hours.

•Fanjingshan National Nature Preserve was listed as the UNESCO World Natural Heritage in 2018 with the peculiar conspicuous mountains formation in sea of karst retained from the remote era 65-2 million years ago and praised as the No.5 Buddhist Mountain in China for being the place of enlightenment of Buddha Maitreya.

•Enter the mountain and take a sightseeing bus for about 20 minutes to Yu’ao Station and continue to take the cable car there to catch a bird’s eye view of the dense emerald forest of Mount Fanjing during another 20 minutes in the air. Now, start your hiking from the Forest Hiking Road with 45 minutes up to witness the famous Mushroom Stone. It is the landmark of Fanjingshan and draws people’s follow by its unbelievable image of the bigger top quadrate putting off center on the smaller quadrate bottom, which forms like a mushroom vividly and seems easy to fall. However, for one million years, it just stands so still there after centuries of rain, snow, wind and sunburn. Remember to take a standard photo of tourists with it!

•Then, continue to hike for about 30 minutes to the Old Golden Summit and walk up to its peak. With an elevation of 2,494 meters, it is the best observation deck to appreciate the panorama of Fanjingshan with layers of forest of strange shaped stones, rolling verdant mountain range, and vegetation forest in light and dark green. Also, from the summit, you will see the iconic Red Clouds Golden Summit clearly from a distance.

•Then, walk down gradually to admire the natural scenery along the way to visit the sacred Buddhist attractions including Wanming Cave, Buddha Worshipping Stage, Monk Pagoda, Pudu Square, etc. You will not miss the Cheng En Temple that was built first from the Ming Dynasty and one of the four royal temples at Fanjingshan. Walk in the major temple with solemn scarlet walls and dark tiles, worship among the about 10 halls, and imagine the rising and falling and recovery of Fanjingshan’s Buddhist status in the past hundreds of years.

•Here, take your challenge to hike along the narrow, steep and rough steps with iron chain up to Red Clouds Golden Summit that shows particularly often on Fanjingshan photographs. This thumb-like peak is a world rare miracle erecting about 100 meters high from the flatter mountain bed millions of years ago and is separated with two peaks and a gorge by natural wearing and with a bridge linked between. After reaching the top, visit the appealing Temple of Buddha, the bridge and Maitreya Temple in sequence to feel walking from present to the future in Buddhist belief. While witnessing the hard-to-believe difficulty of building houses on such a steep crest, stand on the peak to command the panoramic view of Fanjingshan and enjoy the feeling of being in the “space in the sky”. (Note: You can choose to go up or not considering your physical condition at that time. Just tell your needs to the guide.)

•After the physical consuming hiking, walk by Jingxin Pool and go to see Wanbao Rock. You will truly believe Fanjingshan was in fact a part of ocean in the remote 1.4 million years ago by the strong proof of the cobbles, shells, paleontological fossils, and so on left within the shale rock there.

•After the amazing sightseeing hiking exploration, take the cable car and sightseeing bus down to exit Fanjingshan Scenic Area. You will be driven to Zhenyuan County for accommodation. Have a good sleep!

•Zhenyuan is an ancient town with a long history of 2,000 years. Enjoy the night views in Zhenyuan

Day3 Zhenyuan-Wudong

In the morning we visit Qinglong Cave (also named as Black Dragon Cave) located at the foot of Zhonghe Mountain and along the banks of Wuyang River. Actually, Qinglong Cave is not just a cave but with six groups of buildings including multi-storied pavilions, temples, shrines, palaces on the cliff. Visitors could not only view natural scenery but also appreciate the architecture art. Enjoy yourselves in the culture museum of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

In the afternoon we drive to Wudong Miao village, which is located on the high mountain Leigong, and isolated. We can see the terraced paddy fields on the hills. After we arrive at Wudong, you can try to fish in the local farmer’s paddy field with their bamboo basket, and cook the famous Miao Cuisine”Suan Tang Yu”, it sounds like sour soup fish with tomato soup mixed with less chili. There is a nice footpath to take a walk around the village in the morning or in the evening.

Overnight in Wudong Village

Day4  Wudong Miao village-Dali Dong village

Take the simple breakfast in Wudong village, and we start our trip today to Dong region.

On the way to Dali Dong village, we explore another village called Getou, it’s isolated and quiet, touched by very few outsiders. Local people love tea and rice wine.

After Getou village visit, we take a drive of 2.5 hours to Dali Dong village, this is quite different group, not only is the culture different, but also the building, languages are different.

The typical symbol of Dong villages is their drum tower located in the center of village.

Overnight in Dali village

Day5 Dali -Zhanli -Huanggang-Zhaoxing

Today we visit several Dong villages, so we can visit Zhanli Dong village, Huanggang village and Zhaoxing. Zhanli village was the first village to start their family control since 300 years ago by some secret herbs that only mastered by one or two local female doctors, for keeping the balance between local humankind population and the rice field quantities.  Huanggang is the best protected Dong village in Guizhou, the local farmers still wear their daily traditional clothes.

Zhaoxing is the biggest Dong village in Guizhou with more than 1000 Dong households, and about 5000 Dong habitants living here. And there are 5 drum towers in Zhaoxing.

Overnight in Zhaoxing

Day6 Zhaoxing

Take a local van to Tang’an in the morning, and start our hike from Tang’an to Zhaoxing, we can walk down the hills and pass through the rice fields to Zhaoxing, this walk takes 2 hours. If you get tired after the walk, we can relax in the afternoon. Or we can do one more hike to JItang Dong village from Zhaoxing, it takes only 1 hour.

Overnight in Zhaoxing

Day7 Zhaoxing-Basha village-Zenlei

Visit Basha Village, they are the last gunners in China. If the weather is good, we can have a chance to watch their dance performance and see their hair been shaved by the sickle. After the village visit we would take a long drive of 3 hours to Zenlei village of Shui group. Shui is a different group from Miao or Dong. Enjoy the nice views of terraced fields, and very possibly you can hear the frogs or crickets singing at night

Overnight in Zenlei

Day8  Zenlei- Guiyang Airport

It takes us 3 hours to Guiyang Longdong Bao airport from Zenlei village.

After we send you to the airport for the flight back to Shanghai, our service ends.