The first time I came to Fenghuang, we were in a hurry to get to another place we didn’t get to stay the night. But this time, with my friend already home, I got a chance to stay. After a nice dinner at a random Fenghuang restaurant, I set out to capture the ancient town as it is seen at night.
When night falls, the town of Fenghuang is lit up by an dizzying array of lights. This is to be expected of a major tourist attraction. The thing with Chinese tourist attractions at night is that they use questionable colors in decorating their attractions. I have seen photos of cave lit up in yellow, green, red and even blue colors. Seeing this sort of takes the wonder of seeing these attractions. Visitors will just have to accept and get used to this seemingly garish color scheme.
The ancient town of Fenghuang’s lighting is not spared from this kind of treatment. A lot of buildings along the Tuo River have their roofs outline by right lighting. The old buildings themselves are also lit up in a bizarre array of color such as green and violet. Even the trees themselves are lit up with a bright green light.
The main pagoda along the river is still tastefully done with the inside of the pagoda lit up and the roof accented with orange light. This multicolor display reflects on the placid Tuo River, giving it an otherworldly feel. Along the river near the Hong Bridge, there are vendors hawking what seems to be floating flowers. Actually they are supposed to float but the paper flowers are burned while they float along the rive until nothing is left of them. This seems to be a popular night time activity here in Fenghuang as a lot of locals were busy burning away the paper flowers on the river.
At night, there is a bar scene in Fenghuang but not as rowdy as other Asian cities like Manila or Bangkok. When I got back to the hostel, I found out that there was some Chinese music playing from somewhere nearby, fortunately, it stopped at around ten in the evening. From my window, I can’t help but admire the scene, be it night or day, Fenghuang is truly a sight to behold.
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