Taking opportunity of long holiday weekend of Dragon Boat Festival, I’ve paid a visit to Guizhou. Guizhou is located at South West of China. It is a mountainous province. During my four hours train ride between GuiYang (capital of Guizhou) and ZhenYuan old town, I come across more tunnels than I care to count. :P Guizhou is also one of the most diverse provinces. Minority group like Miao, Yao, Dong, Zhuang and etc are accounted for about 37% of its population.
That was the first field trip that I put my recent acquired equipment to actual test. I replaced my Canon DSLR with Fuji mirrorless system, and subsequently changed all accessories for the sake of travel “light”. In fact, I did.
Fuji X-T1
Fuji XF 10-24mm F4 OIS
Fuji XF 35mm F1.4
Fuji XF 56mm F1.2
Nissin CPL, ND filter, spare batteries and SD card
Fotopro PGC-484 tripod
All of above (except tripod) includes a mini iPad fit comfortably into a Lowepro Passport Slingshot II. If I’d carry the same setup with my previous Canon system, that could be another 2 to 3Kg on my back.
Day 1 (30th May’14 Wuxi to GuiYang)
Plane arrived at GuiYang in the afternoon so I had few hours to kill. Wondering around the city I did not find much things that captured my attention. Local food was nice but mostly very hot and spicy. This city somehow reminded me of Shenzhen back in late 20th century.
Shoes Shine is common sighting along roadside. GuiYang
Day 2 (31st May’14 GuiYang to KaiLi)
My destination of that day was Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai; the biggest Miao Minority village in China. Qian Hu in Chinese means thousand of houses. The easiest way to get there was by train to KaiLi, and then took a taxi to Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai. The entire trip took less than four hours. Entrance fee was RMB100 and another optional RMB20 for taking a bus, which brought you to edge of village. You could choose a 20 minutes walk instead.
Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai
Not to my surprise, this village had been developed into a very commercialized tourist spot. In fact, just like many other so called ancient or old village/town in China, urge of rapid development had turn many into “shopping” area.
Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai
Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai
Luckily, this village was quite big. Much better preserved parts of village are located up on the hills. Take your time to explore the small alley and don’t stay in main road. Walk up to a hill at south of the village you can catch an overview of Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai.
Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai
Look at that spotlight! Xijiang Qian Hu Miao Zhai
To be honest, I was quite disappointed. But, there was nothing that I could do. Ten years ago this place would be very difference.
Day 3 (1st June’14 Miao Zhai to ZhenYuan)
I took off the next day to ZhenYuan old town. I managed to find a bus heading directly to ZhenYuan. An
