Getting ahead of the hordes - Day 4

 

One more day in Zhangjiajie

Conditions on our final morning in Wulingyuan 武陵源 reverted to the haze and smog of our first day in town, and not the relative clarity of the day before. But this is China, and sadly the sky don't lie (to quote an infamous YouTube channel), so you comfort yourself with the knowledge that at least the AQI hadn't reached the 200 level, and get on with what you had planned for the day:

The view from the dining room in our hotel where we had breakfast, a scene unlikely to inspire Gary Snyder to dash off a paean to the beauty of the Chinese mainland:

Because my wife wanted to conserve her energy for the day, we eschewed the twenty-minute walk and instead called a Didi to take us one more time to the east gate entrance of the Zhangjiajie Forest National Park 张家界森林国家公园. From there we boarded a park shuttle which deposited us at the lower station of the Tianzi Mountain Cableway 天子山索道. The views on the way up to the top: 

Looking down on Wulingyuan through the haze from the upper cableway station:

A sign welcoming us to the Tianzishan Scenic Area 天子山风景区:

From there we rode a shuttle to Helong Park 贺龙公园, established to create a previously nonexistent patriotic military connection between the national park and the Chinese Civil War 国共内战:  

Yes, there was a McDonald's welcoming people as they stepped off the shuttle, an ironic capitalist outpost. It wouldn't be the first American fast-food chain to have set up at a famous Chinese sightseeing destination that we would see on this trip:

As usual many of the rock formations have been given unique names, which sometimes require some stretching of the imagination, as in the case of "The Girl Holding a Bouquet" 仙女献花: 

Or "The Imperial Writing Brush Peaks" 御笔峰:

"The Warrior Training Horses" 武士驯马:

A small onsite museum displayed items related to the Tujia people 土家族, an ethnic minority group who live in the Wuling Mountains 武陵山脉, which includes the Wuling Scenic and Historic Interest Area 武陵源風景名勝區, the UNESCO World Heritage Site of which Zhangjiajie is part. Below is an example of the kind of traditional wedding outfit worn by Tujia brides: 

According to my wife the Tujia are also known for their silverware:

Continuing with the Tujia theme, Shu-E and I had a lunch of fried rice, river fish and mountain vegetables served from a small shack advertising, you guessed it, Tujia Snacks 土家小吃. The food was pretty good, and we couldn't complain about the view from our table:

Bellies full, we ambled over to the bus station, and hopped on another shuttle to a small stop along the road, then walked downhill to arguably the most scenic lookout of the day, "The Commander's Platform" 点将台, which explains all the photos and videos that follow:

If you're wondering why my wife always seems to be touching her cheek in these selfie-stick photos, it isn't to look coy or to hide some physical defect. Instead she's hiding the shutter button, and doing so for, um, no other reason:

On the way back up to the shuttle stop we passed by this grave hidden to the side of the trail: 

We caught a bus back to the cableway station. By this point it was early in the afternoon and we needed to move on to our next destination, so we rode the cable car back down to the lower station:

Pretending to be on the phone for some reason. Shu-E thinks in mysterious ways at times:

Close up views of the pillars as we said our farewells to China's Avatar country:

Perhaps connected to all the hiking options inside the national park, there are numerous places in Wulingyuan to get foot and body massages. My wife did just that the previous evening. Feeling self-conscious about having the world's ugliest feet, I passed on her offer to join her:

After three days and two nights at the Atour Hotel it was time to bid 再见 to Wulingyuan. We took a Didi to the Zhangjiajie railway station 张家界站. An hour-long ride on a high speed train, followed by yet another Didi trip, saw us checking into the Hampton by Hilton Zhangjiajie Tianmen Mountain, a four-star hotel in Yongding 永定区, the second of the two urban districts (the other being Wulingyuan) of Zhangjiajie City 张家界市, a huge city in terms of the area it administers. The view of the construction site and the smog from our room on the 10th floor provided the kind of typical Chinese urban diorama not usually seen by foreign tourists or influencers. 

Shu-E had chosen this hotel because of its close proximity to the Tianmenshan Cableway 天门山索道 (the building on the left, next to the construction site), only to find after making the booking that the gondola was closed and would not reopen until the start of the Lunar New Year holiday week:

This video shows what we would be missing by its closure:

That evening we ventured out in search of something to eat for dinner. Restaurants, there were many; variety, there was virtually nothing. Almost all the establishments in the streets around the Hampton were serving the same Hunan dishes, making it difficult to discern one restaurant from another. The persistent touts standing outside many of the businesses trying to get customers inside and into seats were also a turn-off: 

Passing by our hotel while still searching where to have dinner:

In the end Shu-E suggeseted this restaurant, part of a chain (there was a branch near our hotel in Wulingyuan). Being a chain meant they didn't need to have an employee standing out front calling out to passersby: 

The local beer I ordered turned out to have a disappointingly weak 2.5% ABV. It looks like I forgot how cameras work when I tried to express my displeasure to my wife: 

The food, fortunately, turned out to be much better than the beer. I had the pork-and-taro dish in the top left, while leaving Shu-E to "enjoy" the duck blood soup next to it:

I really enjoyed our time spent in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. The unique quartz-sandstone rock pillars, which served as the inspiration for the scenery in Avatar, truly lived up to their hype, and it's a pity their awe-inspiring magnificence has been poorly served on these pages by the limitations of my iPhone camera. The relatively few tourists during our visit also heightend the pleasure of our visit. As I'm putting the finishing touches on this post, China is getting ready to commence this year's edition of the Lunar New Year holiday, which will doubtless see huge crowds descend on Zhangjiajie. All thanks deservedly go to my wife, who planned the itinerary and made all the reservations.

Next up will be our day on Tianmen Mountain 天门山, another remarkable natural phenomenon that will be groaning under the weight of all the visitors descending upon it during the next week. Seeing it as we did by keeping your eyes out for the next blog post. 

Getting ahead of the hordes - Day 3

 

Five-Finger Peak

Our second day in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park 张家界国家森林公园 was my favorite of our nearly week-long trip to Hunan Province 湖南省. A big reason for this was the weather. In the urban areas where we slept the air quality was horrendous at times. Conditions were much better in the higher elevations where we spent most of our daylight hours, but even there the scenery was obscured at times by haze or cloud. Day three, however, would be the exception, as the view from our room at the Atour Hotel in Wulingyuan 武陵源 would augur well for that Monday: 

After breakfast my wife hailed a Didi which took us to the southern entrance of the national park:

There were only a handful of visitors at the time we arrived. The two of us set out on the curiously-named Golden Whip Trail 金鞭溪, a flat, shaded trail 5.7 kilometers/3.5 miles in length that eventually leads to the Bailong Elevator 百龙天梯. We wouldn't go that far, but the path on the canyon floor provided endless photo opportunities: 

My photographs will end up on this blog and other social media. Other than sharing a few on WeChat I haven't a clue what my wife does with all the photos and videos she takes:

This warning sign wasn't kidding. Later that day we would witness a monkey snatch some food from a young boy, resulting in the lad being severely scolded by his father. After yelling at the poor kid, dad turned around to continue walking, only to have his bottle of orange soda seized by another macaque:

Of course some of the rock formations have been given fanciful names, many of which stretch the imagination. This outcropping has been dubbed "Golden Whip Rock" 金鞭石. While the moniker is not actually that imaginative, according to the multilingual information board (in Mandarin Chinese, English, Korean and Russian) the resemblance is that of the head and slightly open beak of an eagle, with half-spreaded wings and "in a diving posture to fight against burglars and guard the golden whip". Uh-huh...: 

“Splitting the hill to rescue the mother" 劈山救母:

"A couple bow to each other" 夫妻对拜:

The first of many monkey sightings that day:

Eventually, as the trail became busier, we turned around and retraced our steps back to the start. From there we took a park shuttle to the Huangshi Village Cableway 黄石寨索道. The gondola would whisk us up to Huangshi Village 黄石寨, but not before we took a short snack break:

 

Situated on a 1048 meter/3438 foot plateau, the trail there gives visitors bird's-eye views of the surrounding cliffs and rock pillars:

One of the park's resident macaques takes a break near "Huang Shigong's Doctrine Platform" 黄公布道, the name apparently coming from a Taoist legend:

"Wuhai Jingui (Golden Turtle in Mist Sea)" 雾海金龟. At sunset in summer the sun sets right in the mouth of the turtle, a spectacle dubbed the "Golden Turtle Holds the Sun":

One name that made more sense was Wuzhi Peak 五指峰, meaning "Five-Finger Peak":

"Lovers' Peak" 情人峰 - "much like lovers in the throes of love, whispering in each other's ears and embracing tenderly, the scene exudes a profoundly romantic atmosphere":

"Zhang Liang Hangs Up His Seal" 张良挂印:

"Star-Picking Platform" 摘星台:

We eventually reached the Liuqiu ("Six Wonders") Pavilion , a forest fire observation tower that was renovated in the early 1990s to look more Chinese in appearance. Remnants of a recent snowfall could still be seen on the outdoor observation deck: 

"Immortal's Peak" 神来峰:

The pavilion was the culmination of the loop trail we had walked, bringing us back to the gondola, which we would take back down to where we had started earlier that day: 

From the lower station of the cable car we first took a shuttle to the lower station of Longfengan. There we walked to the upper station, encountering this woman and the pet parakeet who was accompanying her. She would soon have to place the bird inside her jacket as the area was rife with monkeys. It was here we saw the incident involving the father and son described above:

The next bus dropped us off not far from the Dragon and Phoenix Nunnery 龙凤庵, which was first constructed during the Ming dynasty 明朝. It was also the first religious establishment seen on our trip. Unlike many of China's famous Taoist mountian areas, Zhangjiajie 张家界 was only more recently "discovered". Of course people have been living in the region for centuries, but the peaks were never visited by emperors and were largely ignored by painters and poets, which also accounts for the relative absence of Buddhist and Taoist temples: 

From there we hopped into another gondola, part of the Yangjiajie Cableway 杨家界索道, which took us to the Yangjiajie Scenic Area 杨家界景区简介:

From the top it was another shuttle ride, this time to Tianqiao 天桥; then a walk to another bus stop and a trip to the Bailong Elevator, and the descent to the bottom:

Finally, our time in the park ended with a shuttle dropping us off at the east entrance to the park. On the way out my wife stopped to admire some artworks and ended up purchasing a scroll:

I, in turn, bought a photo book. The price was only RMB55 ($8), which was denoted with a price tag on the cover, a relative rarity in heavily-touristed areas. The vendor also didn't try to hassle me into making a purchase, another relatively rare phenomenon, for which I rewarded him with my patronage:

After getting a bite to eat in town, Shu-E and I took a Didi to the Charming Xiangxi Grand Theater 魅力湘西大剧院, to see a show called "Charming Xiangxi". Song-and-dance performances like this one are a common attraction in regions populated by one or some of China's 55 officially recognized ethnic minority groups. Here, members of the Han majority (who make up 92% of modern China's population) travel in tour groups to watch members of these ethnic groups dress up in their colorful traditional ethnic clothing, sing supposedly traditional ethnic songs and perform supposedly traditional ethnic dances. The authenticity of which (including some of the performers) is questionable, and the entire presentation is somewhat problematic, though not in China, where cultural appropriation is a concept many Han are seemingly unaware of. 

A visitor posing before the show with a woman dressed in a Tujia 土家族 wedding outfit: 

The above cynicism aside, the show was entertaining, and captions were provided in English and Korean to help illiterate barbarians such as myself to understand what was going on:

A second, shorter performance was held outside following the main show indoors, though this one had more of an atmosphere akin to that of a circus sideshow, with demonstrations of martial arts strength, knife throwing and the like:

At the end the audience was invited down to join the dancing:

From there we walked back to our hotel...:

...where I ended the evening with a can of Zhangjiajie Beer:

Tomorrow we would make one more foray into the nationanl park before moving on. Hope you can join us!