has any one visit Bamei Village?

we will come half May from YuanYang by private car, who knows the distance?

any sleeping accommodation in the area?

our next stop, after Bamei Village will be Guangman than on to Bama Village Hechi County

www.chinaexpat.com/2010/03/25/the-secret-of-bama-county.html/

for more info on Bamei village, look at

www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/yunnan/kunming/bamei.htm

any information would be great to hear

thanks
peter

Coming from Yuanyang you will spend a full day in the car. First from Yuanyang via Gejiu to Mengzi, maybe three hours, then on a not very good road another three hours to Yanshan, before getting to Guangnan from where it is maybe another hour to Fali. The entrance to Bamei is just west of the highway and impossible to miss.

Bamai has long been Guangnan's main tourist attraction with an entrance fee, so do not expect to be the first tourist there. The entrance fee buys you a few boat rides, the first one through a large cave, which is actually quite impressive. Emerging from a cave you enter a small Zhuang inhabited valley. There are restaurants in the valley and probably also simple places to stay, however I am not sure how many people choose to stay. A pony cart and a final boat ride take you out on the other side where tour busses pick up their charges, if you have a driver it might be an idea to instruct him to come to the rear car park.

The sun sets early behind the close karst walls, if you arrive to late in the afternoon it might be better to go the next morning.

There is of course plenty of standard accommodation in Guangnan, but it is not exactly an inspiring city.

Thanks Ludwig, It sounds that you have been there, maybe it is a better idea to go from Yuanyang to Wenshan city, overnight there, than go first to Puzhehei Scenic Area move on to Bamai and find a place to sleep in Guangnan?

Reading your comment about Bamai it sounds like Guilin on a bad day

I start wondering is it worth it?

We are doing a round trip from 3 to 4 weeks including Chuxiong Congjiang zhaoxing Kaili so we see plenty

Puzhehei is nicer than Bamei and a better choice for staying overnight. In the old Puzhehei village are several guesthouses, but if you do not like them there is plenty of accommodation in nearby Xianrendong, which is kind of a Chinese tourist village (it is not actually as bad as it sounds).

There is not really a need to stay in Qiubei or Wenshan city overnight as there is a new highway from Wenshan to Qiubei from where it is only a few km to Puzhehei and arriving in Puzhehei late in the afternoon is fine.

Last time I was in Puzhehei there was no entrance fee to the scenic area itself (somewhat unique in Yunnan). There are some nice trails around and up the karst peaks, but the boat rides can be particularly nice.

I never felt a great need to revisit Bamei...

Thanks Ludwig, this is a great help, we decided to skip Bamei, the tour busses and pony cart has killed our enthusiasm for Bamei, as a tourist you can not avoid it, but we always try to see some authenticity on our travel in China, so you think we could travel in one go from YuanYang to Xianrendong?
Our rental car plus driver comes with a GPS system what should help
to find the way, but on Google map it looks like many roads are still missing the final construction bit!
I try to look up Xianrendong for hotel accommodation on CTS or Elong.com but could not find anything

Only guest houses I assume, any recommendations?

Shortest and fastest way is first to Gejiu, then towards Jijie and further north until you hit the new expressway in direction of Yanshan/Guangxi (very fast road, might not be on map) to the turnoff for Qiubei (before Yanshan). Then probably just another hour on a new road to Qiubei and 15min to PZH. Total travel time should be around six hours driving.

No need to book a hotel, I would suggest checking out Puzhehei village first and go for the guesthouse that looks newest. If you do not like what you see drive back 2km and turn left to Xianrendong.

To be fair there will be more tourists in PZH then in Bamei, but it is a larger, more beautiful area. Some pics I took a while ago: www.yunnanexplorer.com/slideshows/puzhehei/

Hi, you will find more info. here en.kunming.cn/index/content/2011-09/02/content_2677076.htm

When I needed any convincing about Puzhehei your pictures would be certainly all you need, what a beauties!!

Re the guesthouses in Puzhehei Vilage we will do that, I could find any on the internet only Puzhehei hotel with mixed reviews and Yinhu hotel in Jimping according the reviews damp rooms but clean sheets, the clean sheets sounds great, the damp room less, because we maybe want to stay 2 or 3 days in this area

We don't mind basic hotels as long we can recover occasionally in the upmarket ones

I have to explore your (?) website more coming weekend and we will use it certainly in the future also, we still have to explore the area around Tengchong,

This time we will spend also a lot of time in Guizhou is there a site like yunnanexplorer.com for Guizhou that you know of?

I would not worry about accommodation at all, outside the main holidays (mainly Spring Festival and October National Holiday) there are plenty of hotels available everywhere.

Particularly if you have a car, looking around for a good place is not difficult and will always get you a better place at a cheaper price than booking from afar. The overall standard of accommodation is not bad and in most places Y80 will buy you a pretty decent place.
The main rule is to always stay at the newest hotel, not the most expensive. Family-run binguan 宾馆 are almost always better than big hotels that seem to think that smelly carpets are preferable to tiled floors.

Sorry, I know virtually nothing about Guizhou, apart from that the weather is bad, roads are bad and accommodation is bad. I tried travelling there a few times, but the pain is just not worth it.

I have been to Ba Mei and Pu Zhe Hei 3 times. Read the instructions in my website and if you have any more questions feel free to email or call me.

This website is for information only.

WWW.HUGOYUNNANTRAVEL.COM

Hugo