ANSHUN is an attractive country town 100km from Guiyang on the rail line to Kunming, established as a garrisoned outpost in Ming times to keep an eye on the empire's unruly fringes. Later a stage for merchants treading the difficult roads between central China and Yunnan, it became a centre for distributing opium between the 1880s and the Communist takeover in 1949, but today the emphasis is on subsistence farming, textiles and tourism, with the town acting as a base for tours to the nearby Longgong Caves and Huangguoshu Falls .

 

Anshun is centred around two main streets, Zhonghua Lu and Tashan Lu. The maze of twisting alleys off from here are lined with dark wooden houses and packed with scenes typical of healthy rural commerce: horses hauling cartloads of coal, market crowds bargaining over bags of ducks and neat piles of fresh cabbages, shops selling cheap clothes and every imaginable plastic household utensil. For specific targets, seek out the Xixiu Shan Pagoda , a short Ming-dynasty affair now hidden behind buildings northwest of the Zhonghua Lu-Tashan Lu intersection; or Wen Miao , a six-hundred-year-old Confucian academy with a finely restored, carved stone gateway, hidden away at the top end of town.

New arrivals are likely to find themselves 1km southeast of all this, either where the road from Guiyang crosses Zhonghua Lu at the long-distance bus station , or 500m farther south at the train station . Coming in on the dawn train, you'll be met on the platform by touts for tour buses to the caves and waterfall, which depart from outside the train station between about 6 and 8am. Leaving , buses depart twice an hour for Guiyang until 5.30pm; there are also daily buses to Xingyi, Lupanshui and Yunnan, and trains to Guiyang, Lupanshui and Kunming. Long-distance travel is best booked a day in advance.

Only two places to stay take foreigners. The Xixiu Shan Binguan on Nanhua Lu (tel 0853/3223900; single ¥30-75, double ¥75-100), is a disorganized but friendly hotel with an inexpensive restaurant, threadbare rooms and shared bathrooms, while the more upmarket Minzu Binguan, on Tashan Dong Lu (tel 0853/3222621; doubles ¥100-150, triples ¥200-300), is aimed at tour groups. Their Muslim restaurant varies between good and dreadful, while the pick of cheaper places to eat are down near the bus station - staff here try to drag potential customers in off the street. Dog is always offered (though it's not obligatory), and the best in this line is available at Gouzhenpeng, a small establishment whose English sign invites you to "lunch of dog of China" - the restaurant is 150m from the long-distance bus station down the Guiyang road.