It is a spectacular tourist zone that combines beautiful natural scenery, distinctive customs of the ethnic minority groups, and the subtropical karst landscape.
Tourist resorts of ethnic minorities: Sanjiang and Rongshui are the counties with the largest populations of ethnic minorities. Visitors can appreciate the natural beauty, folk customs, and unique architecture of different minorities.
Dragon Pool Park is covered by green forest and surrounded by mountains, which forms a natural barrier. The 24 peaks of various shapes, such as Lying Tiger Hill, Beauty Peak and Peacock Hill etc, stand around one lake (Mirror Lake) and two pools (Longtan and Leitan). Water temperature in Leitan and Longtan is constant. In the depths of winter, the pools are full of rising water vapor and curling fog, so it is called Misty Rain of Double Pool . Liu Zongyuan, a famous writer and Liuzhou prefectural governor in Tang Dynasty, prayed for rain for people here and wrote an essay about it, which has been handed down for generations.
The park is specially built with varied national architecture and customs in Guangxi and South China as its theme, minority customs blending with beautiful natural scenery. The national customs tourist line has begun to take shape; Dong Village consisting of Drum tower, Longtan Wind & Rain Bridge, Wooden Resident Building and Relaxed Mountain House shows a splendid sight. Quietly stretching over the mirror lake, Longtan Wind & Rain Bridge is a kind of archaized reinforcing steel concrete corridor bridge, which is designed and built on the basis of Sanjiang Chengyan Wind & Rain Bridge. The whole bridge is characterized by its pavilion with upturned eaves. Built close to the water, the nine-storey drum tower with a jade top is quadrilateral pagoda style, with upturned eaves, serried pavilions, glazed roof tiles and cucurbit-shaped top, impress people with dignity and solemnness. Inside the tower, a landscape corridor circles up. On the top, hangs a drum, which presents the function of alarming and gathering Dong people and accords with tourists feeling of climbing highly and viewing far away.
Tips:
1 Tourists can get to know the customs and cultural tradition of the minorities in south China and appreciate the folk architecture art of various styles of minorities.
2 You can have a taste of the ethnic snacks and dishes, such as Youcha (a gruel of sweetened, fried flour), bamboo tube rice and sour fish etc.
3 You can take part in or appreciate all kinds of shows of singing and dancing performed by minorities such as Zhuang, Dong, Miao and Yao etc, including folk song, throwing Xiuqiu (a ball of colored silk strips), Lusheng (reed-pipe wind instrument) dance and firework-seizing etc.
4 The park holds Longtan Leitang Temper Fair every year, which represents the scene over 1000 years ago when Liu Zongyuan, an eminent writer in Tang Dynasty, led numerous officials to pray for rain, hoping that the country flourishes and people live in peace.