we arrived today in Puzhehei and o boy what a disappointment
it looks like, OR we have enter the park on the Disney side (Shigangba) or?
What we see is some villages full with places to eat, to join horse rides to walk in some balloon on the water and blaring music coming out pieces of cement every were. The walking pads we try to take were blocked or partly fallen in the lake.
Thanks to Hugotravel tip we had today an fantastic ride on the road between Guangnan County and Puzhehei beautiful scenery.
SO THE URGENT QUISTION is what do we do tomorrow? are we MISSING something are we in the WRONG part????? please help
Did you ever get any advice about this? I was planning to go to puzhehei. Thanks!
Nope, no body came up with a what to do, an alternative is maybe 30km from Gaugnan county is bahai village we could not visit the village because the river was too swollen, so the entry try the cave was closed, ( there is no other entry possible) the route the road to Gaugnan is also beautifull. Puzehei I would not waste an second on, what an disaster!
After reading the gokunming article my boyfriend and I went to Puzhehei last month. It was the worst trip in our lives. We, two light blond Europeans, caught the attention of those newly rich and they hunted us down like witches in medieval times. Everywhere we went people, were constantly taking photos of us, every couple of minutes!
You can go on a boat tour and choose from 4 different routes or so. If you look like us, DONT DO IT! We told the lady rowing our boat, that we want to enjoy the scenery and take photos. Thats why we took our cameras with us and dont want to have any water splashing. Some Chinese people were doing the same! So every time another boat was approaching us the lady told the other boat, that we have cameras and dont want water splashing. NOBODY GAVE A S****! We paid ridiciously 200kuai for one entrance ticket indl. the boat ride, but we couldnt take any photos and they almost broke our cameras! Because of the other Chinese guests! And imagine you are trapped on the boat, you cannot leave. So in the end, after being terrorized for 1 hour we told the lady to take us to the bank, so that we could get off the boat. We didnt care that the trip wasnt officialy over.
THEY TOOK US AS SOME PART OF THEIR AMUSEMENT IN PUZHEIHEI LAND! They had this " I paid for it, so I want fun" attitude.
We stayed in a hotel in a village next to Puzhehei, something like Double Dragon something something. We really enjoyed it there. Nice, calm, no Chinese tourists, farmers working on their rice fields. The owner of the hostel was really nice and the things he told us, had nothing to do with the gokunming article.
Different minorities live around the lakes, but there dont wear their traditional clothes. There is a fake minority village as part of Puzhehei. Puzhehei is super expensive and you dont get anything for it. The prices for renting a bycicle are ridicilous. Except for disgusting Chinese tourists! And even for Chinese standarts that is unsocial!
The gokunming article gives to the impression that Puzhehei is a laid back, calm and peaceful, little village. IT'S NOT! It's Disneyland with KTVs and hordes of Chinese newly rich rocked the place. So my kind advice:
DONT GO TO PUZHEHEI!
We just went back to Kunming. Best decision ever! We were honestly thinking of writing letter of complaints to the author of the article and sue him!
Sue the article writer because you had a bad time? Are you sure you're not American?
@Elisa: Yes, Im not American, not even an English native speaker ;-)
About sueing the article writer, it shouldnt be taken literally, the letter of complaint yes. In 4 years being in China in different places, that was the worst experience ever! It wasnt just a 'bad' time!
Between the place described in the article and puzhehei in reality is a huuuuuge difference! It's not nice, when people go there just because of the article.
And thanks very much Elisa for your sympathy. That trip just ruinied our whole weekend and gave us a horrible lasting impression of Chinese people/tourists plus the money and precious time.
I went to different places mentioned in gokunming articles, most of them were fine. But next time for sure I will be more careful when deciding on where to spend my long weekend.
When this was your worst experience ever, you maybe just have reached the age of 4, I am 60 now and believe me you will encounter more disappointments in life than this weekend. Don't moan just move on, you will see and experience lots of other great experiences! By the way Puzhehei is an complete waist of time, but you can drive to Guangnan county and visit bamai village or Fa Nong Village, the last one takes you not more than one hour, don't miss the bridge here. A great drive is also from Puzhehei to Xingyi.
Check out the blog from Gaetan, www.travelcathey.com make sure you switch on the VPN other wise the pictures are blocked
Enjoy
Peter living in Spain, just arrived in Fenghuang traveling around on holiday
@Sarah1988
Do leave a comment on that article. I for one, do read the comments to get differing information from readers.
Not in the articles defense, but many nice pastoral settings I have visited in China easily become tourist traps within a year. That's just the reality of the pace of change in this country, and the lure of tourist rmb.
I agree with Alex, yesterday we visit Matang a small village close to Kaili a massive road is in the progress of construction and 3 big government buildings are build almost on top of the village, years ago ( 2009)we went to luguhu lake, it toke a whole day by car to reach it from Lijiang, I understand that there is now an airport and an highway!
