China Guide
Guangxi and Guizhou
Hua Shan Cliff Paintings
Price: ¥13
Address: 110km from Nanning, by train then boat
Set in a beautifully isolated spot where tall karst peaks flank the ZuoRiver, Hua Shan's waterfront cliffs are daubed with thousands of enigmatic figures believed to be connected with the local Zhuang culture of some 2000 years ago. The main access is by boat from TUOLONG, a single-street rail stop for the nearby town of Ningming, about 110km from Nanning or 60km from Pingxiang. Sampans ask about ¥80 for the run upstream to Hua Shan – allow at least five hours for the return trip, including time to view the rock art.
It's a placid journey up the Zuo – buffalo wallow in the shallows, people fish from wooden rafts and tend family plots, and the banks are thick with spindly branched kapok trees, flowering red in April. Mountains spring up after a while, flat-faced and sheer by the river, and it's here you'll see the first painted figures: red, stick-like markings, though most are very faded or smeared with age. Nobody has worked out a definitive interpretation of the 1900 sharply posed figures, but they include drummers and dancers, dogs and cattle, a dragon-boat race, men with arms bent upwards, a "king" with a sword, and just two women, long-haired and pregnant. The designs are similar to those decorating the Dongson drums, and there's little doubt that they were produced by the same culture, currently identified with the Zhuang people. A few Bronze Age weapons have also been found here.
Heading on, there are two morning trains a day in each direction from Tuolong, so you'll probably need to head 5km to NINGMING (¥1 by three-wheeler), a ghastly market town of cheap concrete construction drowned in exhaust fumes. Regular buses run from Ningming until around 4pm back to Nanning or on to Pingxiang – if you can't get out there are several cheap, nondescript places to stay around the bus station.