We were all excited as we piled into the back of the mini-van. David had got the embassy driver to take us on an excursion to the old village of Chuandixia some 60 Kilometers from Beijing. I suppose Chuandixia is the Beijinger’s equivalent of Chinchon for Madrileños. An historic village with restaurants and small hotels catering mostly for daytrippers from the capital.
Chuandixia is an extraordinaryly well-preserved small stone village . It is extremely photogenic and the surrounding countryside offers ample trekking possibilities.
Villagers have cottoned on quickly to Chuandixia’s tourist potential and have started opening simple hostels and restaurants. As a result, there is now a 20 Yuan entrance ticket and a small coach park at the entrance.
There are still many buildings with left over Cultural Revolution graffiti painted on the walls which makes the village an intereting open-air museum for those who can read Chinese.
Chuandixia: How to put a damper on the visit
However, it’s touch and go as to whether all of Beijing residents will take to this place. Ths driver, who had brought long his mother for the ride, something that has happenend more than once when we’ve hired a driver, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about: “Everything is old and like it was 20 years ago”, they both complained. The two of them spent the whole afternoon locked in the van moping about how old everything was. I almost felt guilty, even though we were paying them to be there.
Foreigners love it though! We bumped into several groups of expats who were spending the night there with their trekking guides.
We on the other hand limited ourselves to pigging out, exploring the alleys and eventually climbing high above the village to sit and watch the sunset while polishing off two bottles of Great Wall red wine we had brought from Beijing.
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