Zigong in two days: brine wells, a merchants' guild hall, and rabbit eaten cold

The first thing you notice at Shenhai Well is the smell. It is warm and mineral, and faintly of eggs. Brine rises from more than a kilometre down, runs into broad iron pans and boils over gas drawn from the same ground. A worker rakes the crust aside with a wooden paddle, and in a back room someone weighs damp, grey-white salt into bags. Zigong is a short train ride south of Chengdu and has made salt for close to two thousand years. It is one of the few places in China where you can still watch an industrial past at work instead of reading about it.

A city named after two wells

Zigong 自贡 takes its name from two salt districts. Ziliujing 自流井 means the self-flowing well, and Gongjing 贡井 means the tribute well, whose salt once went to the court. The old centre sits in the loops of the Fuxi River 釜溪河, and fu is the character for a cooking cauldron. Salt money built guild halls, temples and boat landings along the water. Much of it still stands between the tiled apartment blocks of a mid-sized city that has never organised itself around visitors. Two days covers the wells, the hall, the river and one landing town, with enough meals to work through the food the salt trade left behind.

自贡因盐而生，城名就取自自流井与贡井两处盐场。

Morning one: Shenhai Well and the timber derrick

Start at Shenhai Well 燊海井 (Shenhai Jing) in Da'an district 大安区. Go early, when the pans are working. The well was drilled by hand in the 1830s, with a percussion bit raised and dropped on bamboo cable for years on end, and by the usual account it was the first well anywhere to pass a thousand metres. Above it stands a tianche 天车, a tall timber derrick built to haul up the long bamboo tube that lifts the brine. In the sheds the floor is slick and the air is thick with steam. The signs are mostly in Chinese, but you can follow the process just by watching it. The small shop sells the salt by the bag, and it makes a better souvenir than anything printed with a dinosaur. Production does pause, so ask at the ticket desk or check the site's official account before you plan a morning around it.

Afternoon: a merchants' hall and a boatmen's temple

Back in Ziliujing, salt merchants from Shaanxi built the Xiqin Guild Hall 西秦会馆 (Xiqin Huiguan) in the eighteenth century, and they did not hold back. The roof corners curl upward in tiers, the beam ends are carved with opera scenes and horsemen, and the courtyard faces a raised stage where troupes once performed for the guild. The hall now houses the Zigong Salt Industry History Museum 自贡盐业历史博物馆. Drill bits taller than a person and lengths of bamboo pipeline show how brine crossed hills before there was steel. Look up more than you read.

Then walk toward the water to Wangye Temple 王爷庙. It sits on a rock above the Fuxi, where boatmen prayed before taking salt downstream. Its teahouse is where you spend the afternoon: bamboo chairs, lidded gaiwan 盖碗 cups, an attendant topping up from a long-spouted kettle, and a view of slow green water. In Sichuan teahouses a cup usually buys you the chair for as long as you want it.

Eating what the salt workers ate

Yanbang cai 盐帮菜, salt-gang cooking, is Zigong's own branch of Sichuan cuisine. It uses more fresh chilli, ginger and pickled pepper than Chengdu's cooking does, and it was built for heavy work in the heat. Locals tell a story about shuizhu niurou 水煮牛肉, beef poached in a chilli-red broth: oxen turned the brine winches, and when they were worn out they went into the pot. Lengchi tu 冷吃兔 is rabbit fried hard with dried chilli and Sichuan pepper and eaten at room temperature. It is sold all over town, including in vacuum packs that travel well. Xianguo tu 鲜锅兔, rabbit flash-fried with pickled chillies and young ginger, is the hot version and the better one. For a gentler table, look for huobianzi niurou 火边子牛肉, beef sliced thin enough to see light through and dried over a fire. Or try Fushun douhua 富顺豆花 from the county nearby, a firm tofu pudding eaten with rice and a dish of chilli dip.

Day two: down the Fuxi to Xianshi

Xianshi 仙市古镇 is a short drive downstream, southeast of the centre. It was once a landing where salt was loaded for the Tuo River 沱江 and, beyond it, the Yangtze. The main street runs beside the water on worn stone, past guild temples, teahouses and shopfronts selling douhua and spiced snacks. The town has been restored, and weekends bring local day-trippers. On a weekday morning, though, the landing steps belong to people rinsing vegetables and men playing cards under the eaves. A slow walk along the street and back by the river fills the morning. If you have the afternoon, go to the Zigong Dinosaur Museum 自贡恐龙博物馆 at Dashanpu 大山铺. It is built over a dig site where the bones still lie as they were found, a fitting counterpoint to the wells.

Getting there, when to go, and the word for mild

High-speed trains reach Zigong from Chengdu on the line that continues to Yibin. The trip is short enough to treat the city as an extension of a Chengdu stay. Chengdu has several stations, so check departures on 12306. Zigong's station sits outside the old centre. Take a taxi or a Didi into Ziliujing, and stay near the river or Jiefang Road 解放路 so the rest stays walkable. Spring and autumn are the comfortable seasons, and summer is humid. Around Chinese New Year the Zigong Lantern Festival 自贡灯会 fills the city. It is usually held at Chinese Lantern World 中华彩灯大世界 and brings its own crowds and ticketing, so confirm the dates with the organiser. Ticket costs at the well, the museums and the festival vary. Check each venue's official account or the Zigong tourism bureau, and carry your passport, because some ticket desks ask for it.

The mistake to avoid is trusting weila 微辣. Elsewhere it means slightly hot. In a salt-gang kitchen it is measured against local tastes, and a plate of xianguo tu marked mild will still make your eyes water. Ask for bu la 不辣, not spicy, and expect a little heat anyway.