Guiyang

Capital of Guizhou, gateway to the Miao and Dong ethnic-minority villages and to the Huangguoshu Waterfall — China's largest. Cool mountain climate, sour and spicy local cooking.

Guiyang is the capital of Guizhou province, a city that until fairly recently was one of the most isolated provincial capitals in China — cut off from the coastal economy by the mountainous terrain that covers nearly 90% of Guizhou's land area. High-speed rail connections (to Guangzhou in three hours, Chengdu in under two) and a massive road-building programme have changed that in the past decade; Guiyang is now a functioning hub rather than a remote endpoint.

The city's interest for visitors lies mostly in what surrounds it. Guizhou has seventeen officially recognised ethnic minority groups, with the Miao (closely related to the Hmong people of Southeast Asia) and the Dong as the largest. The province's mountainous isolation preserved the material cultures of these communities far longer than comparable groups elsewhere in China — which means that villages an hour or two from Guiyang by car retain embroidered dress, silver jewellery traditions, wooden drum towers, and song forms that have almost no parallel in the eastern provinces.

Xijiang Miao Village, two hours east by road, is the largest Miao settlement open to visitors: a hillside of stacked wooden buildings connected by stone stairways, home to around 5,000 people who still wear traditional dress for festivals and often for daily life. The village has been developed for tourism with walkways and an evening performance, which dilutes its authenticity somewhat, but the scale and architecture are still remarkable. Zhaoxing Dong Village, four hours southeast, is the Dong equivalent — known particularly for its five drum towers (feng yu qiao covered bridges) and a choral tradition of polyphonic singing (Dong Grand Song) that is UNESCO-recognised.

Huangguoshu Waterfall, three hours west of Guiyang by car or bus, is China's largest waterfall: a 78-metre cascade across a 101-metre wide cliff face with a walkway that passes behind the curtain of water. The surrounding scenic area includes several secondary waterfalls and river canyon sections.

Qingyan Ancient Town, 30 kilometres south of Guiyang, is a Ming-era fortified village with stone walls, Confucian temples, and church buildings from the late Qing missionary period. It is accessible by city bus and makes a manageable half-day from the capital.

Guizhou's cuisine, sour-and-spicy (suanla), differs from Sichuan food in its reliance on lacto-fermented vegetables — pickled vegetables, sour broth made from fermented rice water — rather than Sichuan peppercorn. Sour fish hot pot (suantangyu) is the canonical Guizhou dish.