Youyang is a Tujia and Miao autonomous county in the Wuling mountains of south-east Chongqing, where the municipality meets Guizhou and Hunan, and it is a country of forested ridges, terraced fields and limestone. Just outside the county town there is a hillside with a cave mouth in it, and a stream flowing out of the cave. Walk through, and you come into a small enclosed valley with fields, bamboo, peach trees and a stream running through it, cut off from the surrounding country by steep ground on every side. The county presents this as the Peach Blossom Spring.
The story it claims
The Peach Blossom Spring is a short prose piece written by Tao Yuanming in the fifth century, in which a fisherman follows a stream, passes through a cave and finds a community that has been cut off from the world for generations and knows nothing of the dynasties that have come and gone since. It is one of the best-loved texts in Chinese literature and the phrase has entered the language as a byword for an ideal, hidden place. Whether or not this particular valley is the one Tao had in mind is unprovable - the claim rests on the topography and on the old name of the site - but the setting is a genuinely good match, and the county has built its identity around it.
What there is to see
The cave walk is short and easy, and the valley beyond it is laid out with paths, small bridges, pavilions and viewing points across the terraces. Nearby, the county town has a reconstructed ancient quarter of Tujia stilted houses, and the surrounding villages hold the region's own traditions: Tujia songs and hand-waving dance, the big wooden houses with upturned eaves, and markets selling smoked pork, chilli and preserved vegetables. The Wujiang river runs through the north of the county in a deep gorge, and the old riverside town of Gongtan, rebuilt above the reservoir, is on the road out.
Practical notes
Youyang is a long way from Chongqing, four to five hours by road, and it is genuinely a different part of the country - the landscape, the food and the architecture all change as you come up into the Wuling mountains. It is best treated as an overnight or a two-day stop rather than a day trip. The peach blossom is out in March, which is the busiest season; the rest of the year the valley is quiet, green and pleasant. Tickets cover the cave and the valley, and the ground is wet underfoot even when it has not rained recently.
