I spent two days in Fenghuang over the Chinese National Day holiday. Prior to traveling to Fenghuang, I had heard that it was one of the most beautiful ancient cities in China, and after having visited there, I can understand why. The scenery, coupled with the traditional feel of the village really made for quite a special atmosphere. Unfortunately, it rained throughout our visit, which did put a bit of a damper on our plans. Also, the fact that it was the Chinese National Day meant that the city was filled to the brim with tourists.
We had made reservations for a homestay a few weeks prior to our trip and at the time, I thought we were paying an outrageous amount of money, given that this was a tiny little city that we were visiting. However, I discovered later on that other people staying in similar accommodations were paying a third more than we were, so I guess the high prices were due to the holiday. Fenghuang is a big tourist destination for local Chinese, but it is not often visited by foreigners. There are many hotels in the area and most accommodations consist of locals renting out a room or two in their private homes. The owner of the place we stayed at had 3 rooms to rent out and ironically one of the other rooms was also rented by people from Guangdong.
Even though Fenghuang is a major tourist destination for locals, it isn’t the easiest place to get to. We traveled from Changsha by overnight train to Jishou and then took a 2 hours bus ride to the edge of Fenghuang. We were met at the bus stop by our homestay host, who led us into the maze of the ancient city until we reached her home. I’m not sure how big Fenghuang is exactly but the ancient city is quite small and the confined area is easily walkable in 30 minutes or so.
After dropping our bags off at the homestay, we made our way out to explore the rainy streets. One of our first stops was this stall selling mini crabs. I’m not sure if it was because we had just arrived after a long journey, but the mini crabs were so delicious that we ended up ordering a second round after we finished the first set.
We then proceeded to just wander around the streets to absorb in the unique atmosphere that was surrounding us. I had always only visited large cities in China, so this was quite fascinating to me. One of the local specialties is cured pork belly (腊肉). You can even purchase cured pork belly key chains as a souvenir.
We made our way over to the water, the epitome of Fenghuang’s famous scenery. Although Fenghuang is more of a tourist destination nowadays, there are many locals who still live in the area and they still partake in daily tasks, like washing their laundry in the river.
The Miao ethnic group has a strong presence in this part of the country, and everywhere we went, we were reminded of the distinctive culture that the Miao bring to this area. From shops selling Miao clothing to restaurants serving Miao specialties, the influence was wide spread. We decided to have lunch at one of the Miao restaurants and ordered some traditional Miao dishes, which consisted of some vegetables I had never tried before.
We were set to leave Fenghuang on a late night train, so we decided to join a day tour, which would take us to a traditional Miao Village. The homestay arranged it for us and for the price we paid, it was a pretty good deal.
We took a bus for about an hour and reached a gathering point where we met our guide. The tour group consisted of about 30 people and as we were waiting for one of the bamboo boats to come take us down to the village, a man came over and asked our guide if the guide would take his family as well if he paid him cash. Our guide was this 19 year old kid who giggled at the possibility of making some cash under the table, so he agreed right away, so we ended up with 7 more people in our group. On the boat, we were met with some amazing, unspoiled scenery.
We were first taken to a cave with a very steep stair climb. The cave was nice, but the climb was quite difficult as it was dark and slippery. I was constantly worried for all of the elderly and children that were in the cave.
After the cave, we were taken to the Miao Village where girls in traditional dress were singing to greet us. I was a bit disappointed in that the only part of the village we saw was the part that was set up for the tourists. This included some vendors selling traditional dress, goods and a performance area where the locals were putting on short dance and song numbers.
We spent about an hour or so wandering the area and by the mid-afternoon we hopped back on the bus for our journey back to Fenghuang. Our bus was caught in traffic and we were quite anxious as we needed to catch a late afternoon bus back to the train station, to continue on with the next leg of our trip. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.
For more photos, please see my Photo Gallery of Fenghuang.
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