A ride through Wanfenglin, Guizhou’s best-kept secret
This tranquil valley in Guizhou has scenery to rival that in Guilin – and is best enjoyed by moped
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.
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.