Qikou Scenic Area, Shanxi, China

5Jasper F 5:00 PM Apr 22, 2013

Lijiashan was the true highlight of China. No tourists, authentic village!
We planned to stay only for a night in ine of the caves, but ended up tsyaing there for 3 nights! We loved it! Apparently the village of Lijiashan is used a lot by Chinese art students for paintclasses. We stayed with a studentgroup and spend the day walking ariund the area, taking ohoto's and draw a little ourselves. One of the students painted our grottoe and gave it to us as a present (no conjob this time!). There are no souvenirsshops, no touristtraps. It's real! And it's for a limited time. The first restaurations have started, the elder people are almost gone and in a few years tourism will defenitly take off here! From Taiyuan West busstation, we took a bus to Lisjèh (or something. Not to mix up with Lishi!) for 82 yuan each. The west bus terminal is on the other side of Taiyuan from the train station. We took a taxi for about 23 yuan. Busses from Taiyuan to Qikou leave daily at 10:30 am only. The bus to Lisjeh also goes at 12:00, it's about four hours drive! At Lisjèh we took a bus to Qikou for 15 yuan (1,5 hours). Once at Qikou we were told we had to walk. But honoustly, we carried over 20kg of stuff and the walk is quite uphill. So we got a taxi. Someone offered to bring us in a jeep. We thought for 2 yuan (we should have known better), he thiught for 200 yuan! It almost ended up in a fight (the guy is the owner of the hotel in Qikou, just across the bridge). In the end we paid 50 yuan. Which is not too bad we found out, the price for a minivan from Qikou to Lijiashan is 30 yuan. Once up the mountain there are severall places offering very basic lodging. There is one place with a hot shower. On the other side of the village, on top of the mountain. The other places are showerless, but not less charming. We enjoyed experiencing the way of live they used to live here. Including night runs to the pit toilet ;-) Enjoy!

4KodoDrummer 5:00 PM Apr 14, 2017

Beautiful ancient town, lots of relics, and very scenic area
The ancient Chinese merchant mountain-town of Qikouis is on the banks of the Yellow River, in Lin County, Shanxi Province. Although this ancient town is close to 1,000 years old, it only started to attract tourists in 2010, and this was due to an initiative of the local government to attract tourism. The history of Shanxi province goes back 4,000 or more years. It is said that Shanxi is the cradle of Chinese civilization. Emperor Yan is believed to have lived in southwestern Shanxi in approximately the 25th century BC. As proof of its significant history, Shanxi has 35,000 relic sites and growing as more and more continue to be discovered. There were a few artists (photos attached) in one area of the town. We bought two paintings at 120rmb each. The Yellow River Rock murals (photos attached) outside the village of QiKouzhen. Rock erosion over the years has created a form of beautiful “modern art”. Although the nature-made murals were nice to look at, I wouldn't recommend the trip out to see them. For most, looking at photos should suffice. The return trip cost us 250rmb. Similar to most smaller town people in China, the local inhabitants were very friendly and helpful. Although there are some western toilets, you may find it a challenge using Chinese-style squat toilets. Usually, the floors are dirty-wet, so roll up your pant legs before squatting. Make sure you have a good supply of tissue on hand at all times.