Peaking our interest

It was hard to believe that a standard room in one of the best hotels in Panzhou was priced at only 210 yuan ($29).

Dinner, fresh beef hot pot at a nearby restaurant, was of exceptional value and very tasty at 180 yuan. The beef was tender and the sauce, which included chili pepper paste, was spicy and aromatic. Dipped in the sauce, the beef was mouthwateringly delicious.

Breakfast in a nearby rice noodle shop the next day was, incredibly, even better. Twelve yuan will get you a bowl of rice noodles in either beef or chicken soup. I spent another 10 yuan adding an egg and a chicken leg.

We headed to Laohei Mountain to be greeted by a landscape of rolling hills, right behind the county town, and wind turbines serenely going about their work.

To find the road up the mountain, we needed to search for Laoheishan Wind Farm in the navigation app. The narrow and winding road is newly paved, but easy to navigate and with few vehicles.

After 40 minutes, we reached the ridgeline of Laohei Mountain.

The hilltops are surprisingly wide and flat, with rocky slopes surrounding grassy meadows. Dense bushes grow rampant on the slopes. In September, many wild plants were still blooming, including a species of rhododendron shrub with big, white flowers and at least three species of impatiens with, respectively, yellow, white and red flowers.

The meadows, offering panoramic views of valleys, villages and the city at the foot of the hills, are ideal places to camp and have a picnic. Local people know this and many can be seen running stands that line the road, renting tents or barbecue equipment.

It was probably because it was a weekday that their business seemed quite slow.

We walked around several hilltop meadows, and climbed up three or four wind turbine platforms to enjoy the cool breeze and beautiful views before heading to the Niangniangshan scenic area in the afternoon.

After an hour's drive we arrived and realized that, hidden in a broad valley, the scenic area features many attractions, including a mountaintop park that can be reached by cable car, a few karst caves, sinkholes and a hot spring resort. It needs two or three days to explore.

We opted to instead pay the 20 yuan per person admission fee to see a river flowing from a karst cave along a winding trail on the steep river bank. It was a pleasant two-hour hike, shaded by the sheer karst cliffs and overgrown trees.

We then drove two hours to Xingyi in the southern part of Guizhou.