Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art

Zuojiang Huashan Rock Art is a rather difficult WHS to fit into a China travel itinerary as it lies in the far south, in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. But it works well coming from Vietnam: the daily night train from Hanoi to Nanning stops every morning at 7.10 in Ningming. From that station, you are only a few kilometers away from the ‘entrance’ to the rock art landscape. I’ve written some more logistical details in a separate Forum post for those who consider taking the same approach.

Having read the earlier reports by Zos and Zoë beforehand, I hoped to just find a taxi driver to take me to one of the viewing platforms instead of having to join one of the boat tours. But when I arrived it was raining and still dark. After some wanderings, I found a tricycle driver, who dropped me off ca. 8km away at Zhoulian dock. I saw people doing construction work there, but not much else was going on. With the help of a translation app on her phone, one of the girls at the reception informed me that the first boat would leave at 11.30. That meant another 2.5-hour wait for me. But what else could I do – I was stuck.

Around 11 o’clock more (Chinese) tourists started showing up, some 20 in total. It was still raining but fortunately, the boat that is used for the tours is fairly large and covered, like a small cruise ship. …

What a disappointment even with my low expectations for rock art in general. A lot has changed since the site has been inscribed and the town of Ningming has really been placed on the map. Known to local tourists before, the town has been upgraded with rock art copies to decorate lamp posts, supermarket roofs, even the factory chimneys, with the cutest one at the tunnel entrance to the scenic area that has the world heritage symbol as rock art alongside the stickmen/women found on the walls.

TIC, or This Is China, refers to the fact that things change quickly here. Before one would have to find an obscure boat hire service to take you to see the rocks, then there was a ferry service twice a day, now there are regular tours from Zhulian Ferry Port every half an hour on weekends, and this was already early November.

I regret not going directly to the scenic area onky a few kilometers further in because the ferry service is slow and you spend a maximum 10 minutes looking at one of the walls, with many rocks walls covered with scaffolding where they still do plenty of research on the art. There are some individual drawings on the way but it takes a good 45 minutes to the place they stop. They in fact spend more time stopping at the local village for the inevitable shopping, mainly fruit and snacks. The images at the port and even the entrance …

[Visited Ningming Cluster on Jan. 13, 2018]

English information on Hanoi-Nanning train route is limited. But coming from Hanoi, the MR1 train actually stops at Ningming Country. Hotels in Hanoi can book train tickets – mine costs $35 USD to Pingxiang Border and I bought Pingxiang-Ningming at the station for 11 RMB. The train leaves Hanoi at 9:15 PM and arrives Ningming at 7:00 AM.

Ningming really takes pride in their WHS. You can see the rock art figures printed all over town. They even put the UNESCO WHS logo in front of the train station - perhaps to remind travelers they are indeed not lost upon arrival on this sleepy town. And the ease of visiting this WHS stops here. There are no English signs pointing to Tuolongqiao Dock where boats supposedly to the scenic area are located. Locals are not of help either unless you speak Mandarin or local language. According to AMap (a Chinese map app) there are buses going to Huashan Murals. But the bus stops are nowhere to be found and there are no signs of it even on the GPS coordinate given by the map.

Already tired and frustrated after 30 minutes of looking for the dock and bus stop, I gave in to the offer of the man who kept talking to me. He had a van parked at the station and he offered to bring me to the site and back for 100 RMB. It was still 8:00 AM so I figured …