Traveling in China - Day 7 - Detian Waterfall (德天瀑布 [Détiān Pùbù])

Detian falls. Our destination.

Today was a waterfall day, so I woke up super excited! It took us a lot less time to pack up and leave the apartment than I anticipated. Guess it is nice to be able to fit everything in a couple of backpacks. We all shed a tear as we left our apartment for the final time (one giant collective tear; not three separate ones).

We started walking to the bus station, but giving just a slight glace to a tricycle driver will sent one your way. Pretty soon we had a couple drivers wanting to take us anywhere. Tricycle drivers are nice because if you are in a group, they are usually almost as cheap as a bus, but they will take you exactly where you want to go and you don't have to wait very long.

In this picture you can see a couple of tricycle drivers. Not the most comfortable, but at least you get to sit down. Most city buses you will end up having to stand.

We got a bus ticket for ¥21 ($3.35) and were quickly on our way. The bus was a lot smaller (and not as nice) as the bus that took us to Chongzuo, but it was nice to be on the road again.


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The ride was about two hours. I included a map with terrain so you can try to get an idea of what the trip was like. If you zoom in a bit, you can see some almost bubbly looking things. They look kind of like mountains that are shooting strait up out of the ground. They look that way on the map because that is exactly what they are. The mountains are Karst mountains, very similar to what you would see in the famous city of Guilin. This easily was one of the most beautiful drives I have been on. The mountains were incredible and everything was green. The only thing that was not amazing was the fact that we still were not able to escape the pollution that seems to exists everywhere in China. 

What made the drive even more fun was the fact that we were driving through some very small towns. It was fun to see rural life in China and made me excited to be far away from any large city. You could tell we were in a really rural area because of how bad the roads are. They are quite windy and bumpy. Don't worry though; I didn't even throw up. The girl in front of me did. Three times. Fortunately here mother had a bag for her. Actually, after that I noticed that most of the buses where we were had bags hanging in the bus. Not sure if they were specifically for people to throw up in, but they were certainly used for that purpose on more than one occasion. 

When we were finally in Daxin, the bus driver kind of looked at us and indicated that this was in fact Daxin. Not a very large town. We got out and started looking for a hotel so we could drop off our stuff. We stopped at the first hotel that we saw and were happy that it was even cheaper than the first hotel (¥70 | $11.15). When we first got there, the lady was really nice, but after a while when she realized that we wanted to stay there, she started talking to us and suggesting that we go to another hotel [Anecdote break! In China it has been very common for people to recommend we go to their competition for goods or services. Seems pretty weird. Just as some examples; once when I went to a restaurant, we sat down and were ready to order. I asked if they had noodles with eggs, and the waiter said they did not. Then he said that the neighbor did, and we could go there. We did. Sometimes when I try to buy something, the owner will tell me that the item is bad and recommend another (often cheaper) item. Once I went to order something and the owner said I was just paying for the name on that item, then suggested a much cheaper item that he said was just as good. Lastly, many of the hotels we went to suggested we go to nicer hotels, better for foreigners.]. Turns out that the reason she suggested that we go to another hotel was that foreigners had never stayed at that hotel before and she didn't know how to input our passport information in the computer. We told her that was not a problem and that we could help her with the info. She had Jerry go behind the counter and start typing something in. After about 5 minutes, the girl running the shop next door saw us and could speak a bit of English. She spent the next 20 minutes helping us getting our info in the computer (many Chinese people are just super nice like that). 

Once in the hotel, we quickly found out that we didn't know how to flush the toilet (squatter actually). We asked the lady there and she said some things that I didn't really understand. I looked it up in my dicationary and realized that she said we need to use a bucket and just dump water in. Yay. More buckets for flushing. Interestingly, there was no bucket in the bathroom. We cut the top off one of our water bottles and used that for a bucket. Had to be used a few times to get everything down, but it worked. I love cheap hotels. 

This is a view from our hotel.

We ate a quick lunch after finalizing everything at the hotel. 

I saw this ceiling fan at the place we went to eat lunch. Thought it looked cool. 

After having settled down, we were ready to find us a taxi driver who would take us to the waterfall. Ever since we got to the city of Daxin, we had been getting creepy guys randomly wandering up to us and asking us where we would like to go. Turns out they are all taxi drivers who drive cool mini vans. We spent the better part of 30 minutes talking to no fewer than 15 taxi drivers to see who would get us the best deal. Finally we settled on a driver who told us that he would take us to the falls, wait for us while we looked at everything (ended up taking over three hours), then give us a ride back for ¥230 ($36.50). At fist we were pretty bummed that we were paying so much more than for our hotel. Realistically though, we basically hired out a guy for at least 5 hours (one hour each way for the drive). That is about ¥46/hour ($7). Split three ways, that is not too bad for us.

This is the bus station. It is right across the street from our hotel. Not sure why it was so busy since the city was not all that big, but the bus station was really busy the entire time we were there. This is the spot where we found the taxi driver as well. 

This is a view from our hotel window. Really smoke stack?! Seems that everything beautiful in China is ruined either by a smoke stack or the pollution that comes from it. I have yet to see a place in China without heavy pollution. I can probably count on both my hands the number of times I have actually seen the sun as a circle and not just an illuminating aurora from the sky.

The trip from Daxin to the waterfall was even more beautiful that the bus ride earlier that morning. It was even complete with crazy (and fast) driving from our taxi driver. I enjoyed looking at random houses scattered everywhere. Below are a couple pictures I took from the window of our taxi to give you an idea of what the trip was like.

The pointed peaks are called Karst mountains. I think they are limestone and they form with rain and baking soda (or something like that)

The pollution seems to add a mysterious effect to the mountains. 

View Detian Waterfall in a larger map

It was hard to get a good steady picture from a fast moving, swerving taxi, but really the whole trip, we were driving through mountains like these. 

After about an hour, we finally arrived at Detian. It is nothing more than a tourist town with a few hotels, some places to eat, and plenty of shops. Detian waterfalls (德天瀑布) are famous as being the second largest waterfall on a national border after Niagara falls. That is not actually true at all (I think it is number four), but that is what they told us anyway. It cost us ¥80 ($13) to get in. Once we were in, it was more or less a trail that took us near the falls, up and around, and on the border of Vietnam.

Clinmbing is an increasing problem in China. Everyone wants to clinmb all the time here. (Interestingly enough, these signs were everywhere, but some of them were even spelled correctly. I guess they didn't know what the real spelling was so they figured the could cover their bases by putting up both signs.

Good thing we walked off the sightseeing road before we crossed the border. 

Chinese graffiti. Chinese characters on bamboo looks pretty cool.

This is a view from the falls on the Vietnam side of the border. 

You could pay money to get on a boat to get a better look at the falls. We didn't. 

The Vietnam side looks so mysterious to me.... I like the wood bridge on the left. 

A small waterfall on the path. 

This is on top of the falls looking to the Vietnam side. 

These are the mountains in Vietnam. They look a lot like the mountains in China.

A building in Vietnam.

Vietnam side from a road above.

China side from the road above. 

A lot of people from Vietnam would come across the river to sell things. They would mostly sell currency (not sure if it was fake or real), perfume and cigarettes. 

This is Jerry being happy because Detian falls were so cool.

This is Loida pretending to not be happy. But really she was. 

See. She was totally happy. 

There were a couple groups of people who wanted to get pictures with me and Jerry because we are foreigners. They all think Loida is Chinese. 

I look like a goober when I am taking pictures. 

We ran away before they could tell us to buy all of their stuff.

This is Vietnam. If you look closely, you will see a tower in the mountain. I think that is a border lookout tower. 

So true, so true. I was totally and completely relaxed up there. The negative ions felt amazing. Felt every single one of them.

This was a Vietnamese border control guy. When I asked him how to say something in Vietnamese he confessed that he was actually Chinese.

Communist countries I have been in include China and Vietnam. Non-communist countries; US. Communist countries win 2 to 1 (For the sake of this argument, I am including Taiwan as being part of China. That is what China says anyway)

On the border, there were plenty of Vietnamese shops set up trying to get us to buy perfume or candy. All of the ladies were pretty slick and would call me shuai ge (handsome boy). Didn't work. I bought nothing. Sorry ladies.

I really love this sensitive and homesick phant. You might be more familiar with its distant cousin Ele. 

Detian waterfalls is definitely one of the coolest (if not the coolest) things I have seen in China. It felt kind of weird spending so much money just to see something (Yeah... I know... I probably only spent about $20 and I think that is spending too much money... I really am cheap).

When we were finished, we met up with our taxi driver who was happily waiting and chatting with other taxi drivers. The drive home was equally beautiful. At night we wandered the streets to see if we could find any good street food. Didn't find much, but we found a Taiwanese drink shop and I had a super delicious passion fruit smoothie. Thank you Taiwan for making things delicious.