Guiyang is Guizhou's capital and the high-speed rail hub of the southwest — and one of China's great summer escapes, thanks to an elevation around 1,100 meters. Most visitors treat it as a base for Huangguoshu and the west, but the city earns a slow day or two of its own: a forested mountain park full of macaques, a 600-year-old stone town to the south, and night markets that take chilli seriously.
