Day 29 - The magnificent Huanggoushu Waterfall and scenic sights

We woke and headed down to the free breakfast, Chinese style, which was a delicious mix of noodles, bread, steam buns, eggs, and veges - and although we had to endure the stares of the Chinese tourists (different stares than we're used to, but we're not quite sure why Guizhou is different) it was nice to have a good start to the day - we wouldn't eat until dinner (again).

Today was spent at the main attraction in Guiyang - the Huanggoushu Waterfalls. The bus ride there was broken into 4 trips: first to the main bus station, then to Anshun from where we caught the bus to Huanggoushu, and finally we boarded the tourist bus to take us to the various scenic spots around the area, of course leaving the main waterfall till the end - it appears you really can't get through China without being conned into a tour! We felt sick at the price but after travelling so far to get here, we knew we had to do it!

It took a while to get out of the grump the prices had put us in, but after the first stop at the lovely waterfall Luositan we met Zhu and Chen who took us under their wings and wandered the sights with us for the rest of the day. After a short stop at the lookout, which was enjoyable even in the rain, we headed passed Lover's River - despite the tour being in Chinese we figured out this was because this was where 2 rivers (the Baishui and Wang er rivers) merge.
From here we made it to yet more of the splendid sights that preceded the main attraction and joined our place in the never-ending line of Chinese tourists walking the stepping-stone path through the Tianxing park!! The park is 70% natural and 30% manmade and is full of waterways, rock parks, rock water gardens, lakes, waterfalls, large rapids (not jet-boatable), and a huge cave that made up for our last cave experience in Guilin.
Lastly we headed to the main attraction - the Huanggoushu Waterfall, an 81m wide and 74m tall waterfall. This waterfall is so powerful that the water hitting the 'Rhinoceros Pool' below sends up a cloud of mist that can be seen for miles. Here we got to adventure behind the waterfall through a natural cave, which was amazing - you can really appreciate the sher power of water when you are behind it and looking through it. We continued on the mammoth walk (now into its 5th hour) and thankfully arrived at the buses as the rain really began to pour - here we found a bus, with the help of our friends Zhu and Chen, that took us directly back to Guiyang 2 and a half hours away. Even more fantastic was that the bus station it took us to was the familiar bus station right next to our hotel.

Upon arrival in Guiyan we went to purchase our train ticket for tomorrow to go to Kunming, naively expecting to get a hard-sleeper ticket for a train 24 hours later. Instead we are now stuck with hard seats meaning we will be sitting (separately) in 4th class for the at least 12 hour but potentially up to 20 hour ride to Kunming. This certainly put a downer on our already fragile mindset after travelling through Guizhou, which has been a difficult province to travel through - we didn't expect to love everywhere, but after loving the rest of China this province has been a harsh and emotional reality check. We understand why most tourists by-pass Guizhou.

We headed to the nearby markets and found food hurriedly as many stalls were packing up - our dinner was scrummy potatoes with chilli powder (a local delicacy) and not so scrummy doughy buns with some sort of spice inside (Adam ate these and Liv got more potatoes!). It was a good thing we had some packet noodles and fruit to fill us up after a long energy-draining day.

Very ready to adlib it and move on to Yunnan province tomorrow ...