Following our misty mountain hop through Zhangjiajie, we traveled south by train to the town of Jishou. Jishou isn’t really anything, it’s a transportation center masquerading as a fugly provincial town, but it’s a convenient gateway to the towns of Fenghuang and Dehang. We had made reservations in Jishou while still on the train, some binguan recommended by Lonely Planet. We walked down the street, still in our sweaty, smelly hiking clothes to the hotel, it was pretty depressing. Fortunately right across the street was a gleaming new “international business hotel.”
YJ and I looked at each other, looked at the dusty old lobby of our reserved binguan, and hustled across the street to check on rack rates and possible discounts. Blithely ignoring the “appropriate clothing only” sign on the door, we sloshed our way across the marble floor and politely inquired as to available rooms. Sure enough a “deluxe double” was available for 298 RMB. Now, that might sound like a lot in Jishou — and it is — but then we saw our room. Flat screen, giant bathtub, great view, huge room, it was the Suite Life with YJ and Jeremiah. After two days of hiking and guesthouses, it was a nice change.
The next day we took a bus out to Dehang. Dehang is a Miao village tucked into a river valley of striking beauty. Even, if not especially, on day when the rain was pouring down, the gray tiled roofs of homes and shops gave way to lush terraces of emerald green. As the eye swept further upward, towering hillsides and cliffs pierced the mist and fog and ultimately the clouds. If there is a more beautiful place in China, I have yet to find it.
On the bus ride out from Jishou, YJ befriended a young Miao girl traveling back from her high school in town to her grandparent’s home in Dehang. She was more than happy to show us her home and introduce us to her family. Her grandparents, like many residents, had set up a restaurant/store hoping to take advantage of a tourist boom that is sure to come some day. Nowhere near as built up, Disneyfied, artificial, or overrun with yuppies as Fenghuang, Dehang’s fate remains to be decided. But it is clear that most residents here are eager to trade a little bit of serenity for a bit of tourist cash.
Not that Dehang is village primeval. A kitschy coliseum features Miao dancers reenacting a wedding ceremony every day at 10 and 2. The place was nearly empty. Granted it was a Monday and raining, but it must have been hard for the dancers to get too excited about entertaining a handful of poncho-clad Chinese tourists and one oversized laowai.
After the show, we hiked through the Yuquanxi Scenic area, a 2.5 km trail just outside the village. We meandered through dripping plots of rice and other crops strung out along the river. Our young friend would occasionally stop and dig among layers of rock next to the trail, every once in awhile emerging with squeal triumphant and a small river crab held firmly in her fingers.
The rain came. The kind of soaking, sub-tropical storm that defies all known forms of rain gear and obliterates conventional weapons like travel umbrellas. We pressed on, stopping first by the Nine Dragon Waterfall, swollen with rain and impressive but, we were promised, only a warm-up act. She was right. After a short hike further we saw the Liusha Waterfall, swollen by the rains, pouring over the valley headwall and shooting out and down 228 meters to the pool below. Already soaked, I saw no harm in continuing my stroll around the pool and over a short, rocky trail that took us behind the waterfall. It was a wet trip, but the view of the valley as seen through a curtain of cascading water was priceless. Thoroughly impressed and even more thoroughly soaked, we hurried back to our friend’s house where she and her sister-in-law whipped up an incredible meal of the jerky-like la rou, peppers, potatos, and rice. It was easily the best meal of our trip.
After a day spent in Dehang, we bused it back to Jishou and prepared for our next leg…Fenghuang.
