Day 26 - Baisha, The Last of the Gunner Tribes

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Woke up this morning and headed staight for the nearby Dong Village. The village seemed deserted, so we hopped in our cars and drove through the mountains from Rongjiang to Sanjiang, stopping off at the Basha Village in the Qiandongnan Miao-dong Autonomous Prefecture of Guizhou. The 499 households of Baisha folk live in harmony with nature, worshipping the tree and the sun. They believe their race was born from the stem of the maple tree. They are distinctive from other Miao cultures with the men bearing shaved heads except for the top middle piece which is grown long and twisted into a "Hugun" knot. These are the only people in China aside from the police and military that are allowed to carry guns. More like muskets, they were readily willing to discharge their firearms to the sky for a modest 10 kuai from any passing tourists. The scene reminded me of "The Last of the Mohicans", and it was hard for us to believe we were still in China. Following a light lunch amongst the Baisha, we hit the roads again and headed for another Dong village on the outskirts of Sanjiang. We'd not booked a hotel, but our guide found us a quaint little guesthouse in the pitchblack night, next to a river at the entrance to the Dong Village. At $20 dollars a night for a room, this little guesthouse, aptly named the Dong Village Guesthouse, was to prove to be one of the nicest places we'd stayed in so far.

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