Guizhou- The road less traveled in China (chapter 7 of 9)

Day 3 - Southeastern Guizhou

' Dajiaolou' - Dong wooden structure house

We woke up to our surprise to discover the beauty and charm of Zhaoxing. We had knew about this place when we met Mr. Billy from CITS of Southeast Guizhou in Kailli. It was just a name of Dong minority village then in our travel itinerary until we visit this charming little town. We were so glad that Billy had included this place in our 4 days visit to Southeast Guizhou.

Unfortunately, the town was out of power when we got here in the late evening. The snow storm that strike the area about 2 months ago had resulted disruptive power supply as technicians were still working hard to repair the damages. The worst was our cameras were running out of batteries. We had only 4 shots of pictures here.

We had expressed to our tour coordinator that we wish to do some trekking. So, our first program after breakfast the next morning was trekking. Our driver Xiao Wu, a Dong himself drove us to Jitang, a hamlet nearby where we could trek from there and end in Zhaoxing itself.

A blaze had brought down part of the hamlet not too long ago. The villagers were working together in rebuilding the hamlet. We passed by schools and rice paddies along the trail, and made friends with 2 young girls. One of them had been so kind to show us the way and trekked for some distance with us. Kids greeted us hello repeatedly till they lost sights of us. And we echoed to their calling. It was fun.

After the pleasant trek, we explored the town of Zhaoxing. The 800-household town has remarkable sights - its’ wooden structure buildings - 'dajiaolou' (literally translated as big footed house) wind and rain bridges, drum towers, residents and all the activities that were going around the town. Dong people built their village by the riversides. They run most of their daily activities at the river, like laundry, fabric dying, and etc. These villagers still live in a very old fashioned manner that it made me feel like I had traveled back in time.

Tyng Learning from the master with her new toy

I offered help to a lady with her baby on her back
 to beat the fabric that had been coated with egg white.

We stopped by little shops for some Dong's handicrafts. The most interesting stop would  be a shop which was also home to the shop owner. The old lady was not well verse with Mandarin, so her son and daughter- in- law came to help. We picked our items of interest and began bargaining with them. It was too time consuming as we had many items to deal with and we were in a hurry to leave. I saw a wood mallet at the corner which gave me an idea. To speed up the process, I decided to have an auction with them. My sister, Tyng was the bidder, the store owners were obviously the seller and I was the auctioneer. At times I would allow the sellersto raise the prices, other times I favored the bidder. We all had fun including our quite driver who was having his meal not far from us. He kepts beaming while watching at us, seems like he was entertained by these two travelers.

We decided to travel to Congjiang and put up a night there as no one knows when the power supply resumed. The time in Zhaoxing was too short, I would certainly come back. I could try a different route next time I am here. There is flight to Liping from Guiyang, capital city of Guizhou. It is a 2 hours ride Liping to Zhaoxing.

I upload this video for viewing as I do not have enough pictures to show about Zhaoxing.