A one-hour bus ride from Huangguoshu and Tanxingqiao is the Dragon Palace, (27 km from Anshun and 132 km from Guiyang) made up of a great number of karst caves stretching fifteen kilometers long, running through some twenty hills and connecting over ninety caves. An underground river flows through the caves, leaving some dry and some wet. At the moment only 840 meters of the stone tunnel is open, having been divided into six "halls". The cave, 80-meter high and 50-meters at its widest point, contains some fantastic stalactites and is entered by boat from Tianci Lake. It is known as one of the spectacles of Asia.
This scenic spot includes mainly four parts,
namely, the Rape Lake, the Whirlpool, the Leech Pass and the Dragon Palace
itself with various underground water caves, land caves and ponds on or under
the ground. A boat takes visitors to the magnificent views in the cave, which
goes through the deep labyrinth and brings you to the spacious and bright-lit
halls, around which are the stone pillars and a stone forest, in the shape of
human beings and animals. The scene keeps changing, as the boat gets deeper into
the cave.
The underground water way within the Dragon Palace forms two
chambers: the outer chamber and the inner chamber. In the inner Chamber, there
is a flat place serving as a dock, where visitors can get ashore for a visit. In
the outer chamber, there is a platform about 1000 sq meters spacious. Getting
off the boat and going up some stone ladders, you soon come to the Tiger's Den,
from which some 5400-meter-long stone ladders will take you back to the gate
again through the Stone Forest Park. There are many kinds of natural plants in
this park, natural stone formations and lush, green trees standing crowded side
by side, complementing each other in the sunshine. The last item on the program
is to visit the waterfall at Longmen, the mouth of a cave, where waters from
Tianchi, rush down the cliff and form a unique sight, 33 meters wide, 37 meters
high. People describe it as a white dragon coming out of its cave. Hence the
Longmen, meaning the Dragon Gate in Chinese.
