2025-12-18 Taining
A visit to a UNESCO WHA at Taining
Another early start, being picked up by Toby's uncle Chen Ping at 0800 for a drive to Taining, which has the Taining Danxia Geopark, a stunning World Heritage natural site, famous for its unique "adolescent" red sandstone landforms with deep valleys, caves, and clear lakes like Dajin Lake. It's a key part of the "China Danxia" UNESCO site, showcasing early geological stages with dramatic cliffs, hanging temples, and rich biodiversity, offering boat trips and hiking amidst striking red rocks and lush greenery.
Compared to central China (around Chengdu and Songpan) Fujian is semi-tropical, much warmer and lush vegetation even now. Autumn colours are still evident, but there are plenty of plants/trees with year round foliage - so different to the bare trees and brown fields we have seen early in our trip.
We checked into our guesthouse, which is on the outskirts of Taining, and is a newly built establishment run by a couple, it is very modern and well appointed. They have not had any foreign guests before, and it was an experience as they went through the procedure for foreigners (all foreigners have to be registered in a government system, which is easy if you know how, but evidently not so easy if you don't - if you are staying in a private home you have to be registered at a police station within a couple of days) Actually, Toby did all the registering work and I doubt they'll ever want foreigners again, the lady seemed quite overwhelmed by the whole procedure!
After another feast put on by a relative of Toby's, who also hosted the dinner in the evening (another feast), our party (consisting of us, Toby, Pippa and Isaac, plus Toby's mum and a friend of hers) picked up a travel guide organised by our lunch host, a Ms Tang, and we headed off to the boats for a trip on the lake.
We saw amazing landforms, a hanging temple, walked and climbed through a tiny gap in the cliff face, and Toby, Pippa Isaac and I had a roller coaster ride amongst the cliffs and greenery next to the lake in our 4 hour boat cruise.
The dinner after this was amazing, at a fancy hotel, but in a private room. Like lunch, the dishes just kept on coming, and there were many toasts to each other, to China and Australia, all vaguely comprehensible to me, as only Toby and Pippa could speak both languages, and they were busy dealing with their own meals and Isaac!
BTW Isaac was a real trouper, walking and climbing everywhere, not bad for a 5 year old.
After dinner we had a walk through night time Taining, which was another revalation, with its old centre and moderen buildings, all brightly lit up, and with lots of people about, including the dancing and exercise groups, and families just out for the atmosphere. Many shops stay open until late (up to 2200) catering for these people, so even on a winter Thursday night it was a vibrant place.
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