5-Day Enshi in Depth: Canyon, Pingshan and the Karst Underworld

Morning - the train south-west
Enshi is in the far south-west of Hubei, in the mountains that run into Chongqing and Hunan, and the high-speed line from Wuhan takes about four hours through some of the most engineered railway landscape in China - viaducts, tunnels, and a crossing of the Qingjiang on a bridge more than a hundred metres above the water. The prefecture is the Enshi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture, and about half the population is Tujia, Miao or one of the smaller groups.

The Tusi City
The tusi were the hereditary native chieftains who governed these mountain prefectures for the imperial government from the Yuan until the eighteenth century, when the Qing abolished the system and replaced them with appointed officials. The Enshi Tusi City is a modern reconstruction of a tusi seat, built in the 1990s on the same building traditions rather than on an excavated site, and your guide will say so plainly. What it is good for is architecture you will not see assembled anywhere else: the nine-bay gate tower, the stilted halls on timber posts, the drum tower and the wind-and-rain bridge, all in the Tujia carpentry tradition with the brackets and the roof forms of the region rather than of the Chinese north.

There is a performance - the Tujia work songs, the hand-waving dance, and a courtship sequence - and it is a show, which the guide will also say plainly. It is enjoyable and it is not ethnography.

Lunch
Enshi food is the Tujia table: hezha, the ground soybean pot; the oily tea soup; smoked pork; and above all the potato, which is called kang tudou here and is fried flat in a pan until it is crisp. A mild version is ordered as well, though the region eats chilli by default.

Afternoon
The Daughter's City - Enshi's new folk quarter - if the group wants the costume and the markets, or an early night if the Grand Canyon is first thing the following morning.

Evening
Dinner in Enshi.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Enshi city.

Morning - Qixingzhai
The Enshi Grand Canyon was only properly surveyed in 2004, when a Sino-French caving expedition came through and mapped it, and it was opened as a scenic area shortly after. The comparison people reach for is the Colorado, and it is not absurd: it is a karst canyon with vertical walls up to 300 metres, a network of peak clusters and stone pillars on the rim, and a floor you walk along for hours rather than look down at from a viewpoint.

The circuit is about 8 kilometres and takes five to six hours at a normal pace. The signature feature is Yizhuxiang, the One Incense Stick: a limestone pillar 108 metres tall and about six metres across, standing free of the wall, which is geologically improbable enough that the local explanation is divine. Around it are the peak cluster, the hanging-wall walk bolted to the cliff, and the stone pillars in their dozens. There is a cable car up and a ground cable car at the bottom; the guide builds the day around whichever combination leaves the least queueing.

Lunch
At the visitor centre or on the circuit. There are stalls on the ridge; the guide carries water and something to eat.

Afternoon - the Yunlong Ground Fissure
Yunlong Difeng is a different thing entirely: a fissure in the karst that runs about 3.6 kilometres, is up to 100 metres deep and in places only a few metres wide, with a river running along the bottom and waterfalls coming off the walls. You descend by a vertical lift and walk the bottom, which is wet, cold, echoing and one of the strangest hours of walking available anywhere in China. It is in the same scenic area as the canyon but is a separate admission and a separate half-day.

Evening
Back in Enshi. This is a hard day - 8 kilometres of cliff walk plus a descent - and the guide will have warned anyone with knee trouble to take the cable car both ways and skip the fissure.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Enshi city.

Morning - to Hefeng
Pingshan is in Hefeng county in the south-east of the prefecture, about two and a half hours from Enshi on mountain roads, and it became famous on Chinese social media around 2018 for one photograph: a boat on water so clear that the boat looks like it is hanging in the air, with the riverbed visible several metres below. The effect is real and it is seasonal - the water is at its clearest in the low-water months, roughly November to April, and after summer rain it is merely very clear rather than invisible.

The gorge
The gorge is a narrow limestone slot with walls closing to a few metres in places. You descend by a stair and a lift to the water, take a small boat up the narrows - the section where the photographs are taken - and walk the boardwalk along the wall where the boats cannot go. The depth under the boat is about four to six metres on the famous stretch, and the water is cold enough that nobody swims for long.

It is a long way to come for one photograph, and your guide will not pretend otherwise. What makes it worth the drive is the whole gorge: the narrows, the water, the way the walls close overhead, and the boat ride out, which takes about twenty minutes and is the best twenty minutes of the trip.

Lunch
In Hefeng, a Tujia table.

Afternoon
The drive back to Enshi. Long - two and a half hours each way - which is why this day is always paired with a night in Enshi rather than a same-day departure.

Evening
Dinner in Enshi.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Enshi city.

Morning - to Lichuan
Tenglong Dong, the Soaring Dragon Cave, is about an hour west of Enshi near Lichuan, and it is the largest karst cavern system in China: more than 50 kilometres of surveyed passage, with a main trunk passage that is 200 metres wide in places and up to 200 metres high, and an underground river running through it that surfaces and disappears twice.

Inside
The entrance is the thing. The river comes out of a portal large enough that the scale is genuinely hard to read at first - there are trees and a road at the mouth, and the rock arch is more than 70 metres high. Inside, the developed section is walked on a lit path with the river audible below and the roof invisible above the lamps. There are two shows: a Tujia folk performance and a laser-and-light projection on the cavern wall, the second of which is exactly as touristy as it sounds and which the guide will offer as optional.

The temperature inside is between 14 and 18 degrees Celsius year-round. Bring a jacket in July.

Lunch
In Lichuan. The county is known for its smoked pork and for the root vegetable dishes of the mountain Tujia.

Afternoon
Back to Enshi, with a stop at the tea terraces or the Dong villages if the season and the road are right. The alternative afternoon is the Pingshan route, which the following day covers.

Evening
Dinner in Enshi.

Meals
Lunch, Dinner

Accommodation
Enshi city.

Your guide and driver take you to Enshi railway station or the airport, timed to your departure. Enshi station is on the high-speed line east to Wuhan - about four hours - and west to Chongqing, which is about two and a half. The airport has domestic services to Wuhan, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Kunming.

If you have a later departure and want the morning, the Daughter's City folk quarter or the Enshi prefectural museum are both within half an hour of the station; tell your guide the night before so the reservation can be made.

Meals
Breakfast at the hotel

Accommodation
Not included