Guiyang-Guangzhou high speed railway began its service on December 26, 2014. The project took slightly more than six years to complete and the investment exceeded 90 billions yens (about 15 billions US dollars). It was a difficult and perilous task to build rail line in mountainous places like Guizhou where most of the area are covered with high gorges, steep precipices and deep valleys. Along the entire 857 km long route, there are 510 bridges and 238 tunnels and half of the route were made underground or across the caverns. The train starts from north station at Guiyang Bei-zhan （贵阳北站）, passing by cities around south Guizhou, cities of Liuzhou, Guilin, Hezhou in Guangxi Province, and city Zhaoqing and Foshan in Canton before arriving the south station of Guangzhou Nanzhan （广州南站）. The original 22 hours train traveling time from Guizhou to Canton is cut down to 4-5 hours. Distance between the south west states of China and Zhujiang's triangular area in Canton has tremendously shorten.
Liuzhou's ethnic minority village Datongzhai (柳州大侗寨） is one of the astonished scene along the train route.
Vast farming area of Quangxi.
Splendors mountains scenery near Guilin
The beautiful costume of train staff.
I was in seat No. 1 in coach 1. The first class seat cost about 325 yens one way and there is only one coach.
Train seats are comfortable and flexible. When arriving Guilin station, we were requested to turn our seat round to face the other direction.
The contrast of waiting hall in Guiyang Beizhan and Guangzhou Nanzhan are rather obvious. There are very less passengers in Guiyang Beizhan but Guangzhou Nanzhan are crowded with people.
The food stalls in Guiyang are next to our Hotel. It is indeed very convenient for us to try their local delicacies. We had our meals every day here.
Guizhou is very famous for the vintage Maotai-jiu (茅台酒), the most popular liquor in China.
Tianma， named as Gastrodia Elata botanical, is an precious Chinese herb. Its dried roots are always used by Chinese to control the headache. It widely grows in the hilly area of Guizhou. (PS: consultation is required from Chinese medical professions before consuming any Chinese Herbs)
Guizhou also produced plenty of dried wild Shihu, which many people known as Dendrobium. It is kind of orchid plant but its lower stems after being dried up are used as herbs by Chinese in metabolism and stomach digestion problem. It does not need much of soil but need to grow with high humid weather with lots of rains. They grow well on old wood log or between the cracking rocks. (PS: consultation is required from Chinese medical professions before consuming any Chinese Herbs)
Guizhou's tea leaves though is not as famous as those brands product from coastal states of China but as the locals said, quality is compatible.
Two surprise products in Guiyang: Malaysian famous durian brand Musang King and the packed dried dog meat.
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