By Xinyi Li, EDITOR

Spring is a good time for traveling and spring outings. Here are some mysterious destinations with beautiful sceneries but few visitors. Near Chongqing, these heart-soothing and comfortable places are convenient to reach.

Xiniu Ancient Village in Wulong

Xiniu Ancient Village is located in Tiansheng Village, Tudi Township, Wulong County. It is known as “the land with idyllic beauty, and the most charming ancient village in China”.

Xiniu Ancient Village is a best-preserved traditional site of Tujia People. Built leaning the mountains, the stilted wooden buildings feature swept corners and overhanging eaves. With flowing streams and in bamboo shadows, this peaceful place with picturesque sceneries is located by Canghe River and near Fairy Mountain.

Xiniu Ancient Village in Wulong

The locals there are kind and unsophisticated and stay in harmony with each other. Their poetic lives is also part of the picturesque scenery. It is a peaceful village with pastoral scenes, and people believe that Xiniu Ancient Village is a paradise under heaven and a blessed land with good ecological environment.

Dayuandong National Forest Park

Covering over 40 square kilometers, Dayuandong National Forest Park is at the altitude of 1,160 meters and with the forest coverage rate of 95.4%. It has a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest with the typical Danxia landform.

Dayuandong National Forest Park

Dayuandong is like a painting, and it fits a spring outing. The streams are flowing in the mountains or pouring down with splashing water, and the gurgling sound can be heard everywhere. The intense forests have covered the enchanting peaks. This place is sometimes in heavy mists and sea of clouds, while sometimes fog is around the mountains.

Dayuandong National Forest Park

As Dayuandong has not been developed thoroughly, it is still pollution free. The road conditions are so good that you can choose to breathe the fresh air during outdoor adventure or mountaineering...Just enjoy the nature there.

Thirteen Tujia Stockaded Villages in Qianjiang District

The thirteen stockaded villages are scattered along the clear Banjia Stream. On the two watersides, the mountains are high, and the forests are lush. The dwellings are near the mountains and by the river.

Tujia people have lived there for generations with their own productions and lifestyles, and the unique minority folk-custom has been kept for a thousand years.

Thirteen Tujia Stockaded Villages  in Qianjiang District

All the stockaded villages are back against green mountains and face forward the stream water. The most significant characteristic of the architectures is the plank and timber frame structure and shingle roofs. These stilted buildings have gathered to form the villages, and most residents are separated from each other.

The building forms and styles are different too. Some have three houses in horizontal distribution, while some are quadrangle dwellings. However, they are all very beautiful.

Thirteen Tujia Stockaded Villages  in Qianjiang District

The ground floors of the stilted buildings are live-stock sheds, household toilets or storerooms for firewood. Generally, people will put the farm tools outdoor and other sundries and food upstairs.

Surrounded by high peaks and valleys and with flowing stream water, this fairyland-like place seems like spring all the year round.

Tongguanyi Ancient Town

Tongguanyi is a time-honored ancient town, with a history of thousands of years. Located by the golden waterway of the Yangtze River, it was among the three largest water post houses with Yudongyi and Mudongyi in the ancient time.

Tongguanyi Ancient Town

The Mao’er Gorge, one of the “small three gorges ” of the Yangtze River and “ma’naoke”, also known as horse head, wonder on the Yangtze River, are also there. The ancient people once said, “Chop off the dragon head with a golden sword, and stew the chick with copper pot”. It is the origin of the name of Tongguanyi or “copper pot post house”. There are preserved waterside ancient buildings, which have stood here for hundreds of years, tidy and smooth flagstone-paved streets, and roadside houses with no residents.

Tongguanyi Ancient Town

Tongguanyi has known the historic ups and downs, but what left is its unique charm. A stroll on the flagstone road may take you back to the old days of the 1970s to 1980s.

Baiyun Taoist Temple

Baiyun Taoist Temple is 80 kilometers away from the urban regions and located on the Laoying Mountain in Shijiao Town, Qijiang District. The highest Manao Peak is 1,354 meters high, and the altitude of Baiyun Taoist Temple is 1,085 meters. As one of the three Taoist sites in Southwest China in the bygone days, it has endless pilgrims.

Baiyun Taoist Temple

Now, it is also an ideal destination for people who like hiking. Not only being a Taoism temple, but it also provides a good sightseeing place for the scholars of different generations. According to the tale, Laozi, an ancient Chinese philosopher, once cultivated vital energy there. During the Jiajing period (1521-1567) in the Ming Dynasty, Yang Changfu, a Taoist priest from Jiangxi, visited there and built this temple. The builders had excavated an inkstone inscribed with “Baiyun”, so they named the temple after it.

Near the Baiyun Taoist Temple, there are splendid sceneries of towering stalagmites, inscribed weiqi board on the south rock, a well with cool and refreshing water, two ancient ginkgo trees with interweaving branches, pearl-like spring and raindrops, water flowing through the stone stairs with pleasant sound, and two golden carps in a pool . Besides, Yingfeng Lake, with green surface and rippling waters, is worth visiting.

Source: CQCB