The shaman agreed to see me just after lunch. It seemed a disappointing hour to engage with the next world, but apparently the shaman had a hairdresser’s appointment later in the afternoon, followed by a family dinner.

I had come to Zhaoxing, in China’s remote Guizhou province. Guizhou is a byword for backwardness among the sophisticates of China’s cities. It is largely composed of rice paddies and mountains; a Chinese saying describes it as “a land without three hectares of flat country, three days of fine weather or three coins to rub together”.

In the ramshackle villages, wooden houses lean against one another under a patchwork of grey-tiled roofs. On the mountainsides, terraced rice paddies cling to the steep slopes. Along the Bala river, green as jade, water wheels creak, fishermen throw nets in elegant arcs, and shaven-headed boys float downstream on inner tubes.

Guizhou is populated by ethnic minorities such as the Dong, whose distinctive dress and customs make them among the most interesting tribespeople in Asia. Zhaoxing is a Dong village, a splendidly higgledy-piggledy place threaded by cobbled alleys and crowned with conical drum towers. From the balustrades of first-floor balconies, all manner of things hang — corncobs, laundry, dyed cloth, children, spun wool, drying radishes, mops.

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On the stone pavements along the river, women attacked lengths of indigo cloth with large wooden mallets, while down in the market the butcher was carving up a carcass that looked suspiciously like a dog. For the Dong, indigo is the new black. All over town, sheets of freshly dyed indigo cloth were laid out to dry; the hammering gives it its characteristic sheen, and the women jazz it up with spectacular embroidery.

What the women do with thread, the men do with wood. The Dong are brilliant carpenters, and Zhaoxing is a tribute to their skills. It has five drum towers, each more splendid than the one before. With as many as 15 storeys of overlapping roofs, they are built as they were 1,000 years ago, without the use of a single nail. In the roof spaces, gongs and drums hang ready to announce catastrophes such as fire, invasion or the arrival of a Chinese tour bus.

The other impressive constructions are the wind and rain bridges — there are five classic examples in Zhaoxing. They act as gentlemen’s clubs. Under soaring roofs, on long benches against the railings, distinguished-looking fellows, elegantly dressed in classic indigo, read newspapers, grunt in monosyllabic fashion and fall asleep.

IT WAS on one of the bridges that I was introduced to an elderly chap who gave me the name of the shaman. “First-rate,” he assured me.

“Just the right sort. Knows all the best ghosts.”

Shamans are important figures in these parts. With their unique access to the dead, they are able to proffer advice about a range of issues, from financial investments to marriage proposals. Auspicious dates are a speciality. All over these mountains, one will come across coffins left in the fields, on the edge of the village, waiting for the shaman to declare the appropriate date for burial.

I didn’t have a corpse to dispose of, but I felt I shouldn’t bypass the opportunity to commune with the dead. The shaman’s son answered the door. Decoration was minimalist — on the wooden walls there was a three-year-old calendar showing an Alpine lake, and a picture of a Chinese pop star torn from a magazine.

After a moment, the shaman arrived. She shook our hands. She was an ordinary-looking woman, in an ordinary indigo jacket. Only the piercing eyes seemed to betray her calling.

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