Bing Yu Gou

This is the Bing Yu Gou resort, with the abandoned hotels in the background, me in the foreground.

For the 3rd weekend in March, Myself and a couple of friends from work decided to get away from the city for a weekend. We went to a place called "Bing Yu Gou", about 4 hours by bus and taxi from Dalian. Bing Yu Gou is a tourist resort set in a picturesque area of craggy mountains and lakes. Apparently the place is best seen in the summer when the vegetation is at its greenest, but we figured it would be nice to go when it was a bit quieter. Chinese tourist attractions can be very stressful at peak times, with hoards of people around and being constantly harassed by hawkers.

After traveling for the afternoon, we arrived at the main entrance on Friday evening. There the place was deserted and locked up. We found a security guard who told us that the resort was closed for the winter and would not be opening until mid-April. After traveling all this way,we were a bit disappointed to say the least. However the security guard said that we should go to the smaller "south gate", we might be let in there (?). Back into the taxi, we drove to the south gate. The guard there said that the park was closed but he would let us in the next morning. The taxi drove us back to a nearby village, there were many hotels but almost all were closed (because the park was closed), but we did find a hotel willing to put us up, the price was 10yuan(1€) per person per night. For this price I was expecting a pretty miserable room, but it was quite new and comfortable. The hotel also served decent food and cold beer, what more could you ask for?

China is littered with signs in badly translated English. This kind of language is often called "Chinglish"

The next morning, the three of us piled into a taxi-bike (a three wheeled motor bike with covered seats for passengers) and went again to the south-gate, where the security guard sold us entry tickets and let us in. We spend the day in blissful solitude (difficult to get in China) wandering the trails, climbing the hills, exploring the various temples scattered around the park. We ascended to a lookout tower on top of one of the tallest hills. From there the views were stunning. Leaving the park in the evening, the security guard asked for our tickets back, which we thought was strange, but we gave him the tickets.

This was our transport for most of the weekend, and our driver, "Adolf"

Solitude and fresh air, scarce commodities for the Chinese city dweller

The map of the park had some very amusing descriptions of fairly ordinary rocks and lakes

The next morning we went to the park again and the security guard sold us back our old tickets, at a discount. (I guess the guy has pocketed the second days takings, he only has to account for one set of tickets). This day we explored the resort area and the abandoned amusements. We also had some fun on the frozen streams, sliding stones across and trying to break the ice. After a few hours we headed back to catch the last bus to Dalian.