Site Report: Baofeng Hu

Visits

• 2009-07-17: We arrived at Suoxiyu Village to find instead a metropolis of sorts all seemingly there to support the many thousands of Chinese tourists. It was again brutally hot, so our first order of business was to take a ride on the whitewater rafting course. After finally convincing everyone that Barbara's camera was indeed waterproof, we did the rafting. Nothing too exciting, but it was nice to cool off in the river despite the price gouging. After the rafting, we were approached by a hotel tout, and we ended up staying in a pretty cheap place near the park entrance. Upon check-in, the entire family joined us in the room while we struggled to explain that we were, in fact, not especially hungry, and in any case, we were vegetarian. I think that they interpreted our pantomimes to mean that we wanted an extra huge bowl of noodles, which was brought to our room late at night. We woke up early in an effort to beat the crowds at Baofeng Lake, but we just ended up waiting for the first boat trip on the lake. The lake was one of the most scenic artificial lakes that I have seen for what that is worth. A couple of times on the boat trip, singers came out of hiding to serenade us. The real highlight of this area was the trail hidden behind the Buddhist temple opposite the lake. After getting the blessing of the monks, we climbed yet another set of a couple thousand steps to see another temple containing a reclining Buddha. On the climb up, things got a bit surreal when some cicadas started in with an eerie song. Part of the trail traversed some impossible overhangs with caves and all that. It looked something like what we were expecting to see an Huangshan, and we had some excellent views of the surrounding countryside once the sweat was wiped from our eyes.

Species Seen

Lifelists

• Asia
• World

Trips

• China Solar Eclipse