Trip to Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China

[Bamboo Grove]

Day 1

I started my trip again with a train to Guangzhou. I had a working day on Thursday until 15.00 and my train for Guangzhou left at 18.10 from Zhuhai. That was enough time for me to go through the customs at Hengqin and then take a bus to Zhuhai station.

One hours train trip and I was in Guangzhou. I had booked a hotel about 10 minutes metro ride from the Guangzhou south train station where I arrived and from where my train to Zhangjiajie would leave the next morning.

Unlike during the Christmas holiday, I found my hotel easily and settled in there. I tried to withdraw Chinese Yuan in the morning in Macau as my bank’s ATMs give MOP, HKD and RMB. However the one near my home wasn’t working, the next one didn’t have any RMB and the third one near where I work was out of order. So I thought, I will have enough time to do it in China proper.

Didn’t see any ATMs near my hotel and it was quite late as I settled in. I had some RMB from my previous visit so I spent those to buy some food for the evening and morning and a bottle of wine and went back to my room.

Day 2

The next morning I woke up early and left for the train station. It was smooth going and I arrived there about half an hour earlier than necessary. Yet, whenever I travel, I do have a habit of trying to be there rather early as so many things can go wrong.

It took 4,5 hours to get to Huaihua, where I needed to change trains. I had about two hours there and I went to search for the ATM. Couldn’t find one at the station so couldn’t go to the restaurants to have food. It was something like 2-3 P.M. and I was getting hungry. I had 17 RMB in my wallet. Luckily I had bought some instant cup noodles the night before and there’s always hot water at the stations in China so I ate that one. Then the next train came at 4.30 and it was only 1,5 hours to Zhangjiajie.

When I arrived there I went to have a look at the busses. I had read that the bus trip to Wulingyuan where my accommodation was would be 12 RMB, which I had kept in my wallet. It was 17.35 when I found the place where the buses would leave and it said that the last bus was 17.30. So I went to look for a taxi stand and when I found one, I explained that I needed a taxi to Wulingyuan, about 40 km away but I also needed to go to an ATM. The driver said OK and we agreed that it would cost 100 RMB. I had read that it could be 150 so I agreed with that.

Off we went but not soon after the driver stopped and picked up another passenger. The driver tried to speak with me but his Hunan accent was so thick, I could hardly understand anything he said. Anyway, I didn’t mind the extra passenger as I thought the price was cheap anyway.

We arrived at Wulingyuan and I went to two ATMs before I was able to get money from the third one. I paid the taxi and walked to the hotel, about 2 km away from where the taxi had left me. All was well, the hotel was near the park where I was going and I had money to go for dinner. The dinner was nice, again a minority nationality food, this time Tujia-restaurant. Had the dinner and bought a couple of beers and a bottle of wine and spent the rest of the evening in my guest house room room. The guy at the guest house gave me a map of the park and some suggestions how to spend my days there.

[Big Boy]

Beautiful place.

[Bamboo Grove]

Day 3

I woke up fairly early, wnt to have breakfast and headed for the park. I paid for the four day ticket and got a discount price as I’m over 60. All stories that I had read suggested to go early and start from the Yuanjiajie area where the famous Avatar mountains are located. They warned that unless you arrive early, you will have to wait a long time to get the Bailong sky elevator up to the mountains. The elevator is the world’s tallest outdoor elevator, 326 meters high. I wasn’t up that early and anyway, I had decided to go the other way. So I took a bus from the gate area to Tianzi mountains.

There weren’t many people there and after reaching the area I walked some quite steep steps to were the cable car up the mountain started. I had the car to myself and enjoyed the scenery on the way up.

Up on the mountain the scenery was very impressive, lots of odd shaped mountains. I walked around a few areas and then decided to see where the bus would take me. It didn’t say Yuanjiajie but I saw no other buses in the area.

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It was quite a long ride and it ended in an area called Yangjiajie, which is one of the scenic areas. I didn’t fancy going there as the webpages had said that it’s the most difficult area to walk, although the least crowded. I knew I didn’t have that much strength left in me after walking for steep steps up and down already. Then I saw the bus sign going to Yuanjiajie and hopped in. All the buses within the area were free. Cable cars, the elevator and the tram you had to pay extra.

[Dannie Boy]

Amazing views BG!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PeteC]

Great photos! A lot of those mountains spires are in their death throes I'm afraid. Centuries of erosion. Come back in another century or two and they may be mostly gone.

[caller]

Wow! Stunnning - great pics!

[STEVE G]

Yes, it's very impressive scenery, I've never seen so many tall rock stacks like that in one place before.

[joelle]

Amazing scenery, great photos thanks for sharing

[Bamboo Grove]

Day 3 continued

This time the bus trip wasn’t so long and I arrived to Yuanjiajie area. This was the most packed area in the national park and I guess mainly because everyone wanted to take a selfie in front of the Hallelujah mountain made famous by the Avatar movie.

There were several other scenic spots but I could see most people mainly wanted to see the Hallelujah mountain. I walked around and tried to avaid the most crowded areas but it was not totally possible as it was so crowded. I managed to see what I wanted and at the end of the loop there was another bus taking people to the elevator.

So I went there and there was a fairly long walk from the bus to the elevator and there were many people waiting to take the elevator down. I can’t imagine what it would be like in the mornings coming up. I didn’t see any ticket booth and so I just had to queue and hope they would sell me the ticket at the gates. The queues moved suprisingly fast as there are three elevators and it takes about 5 minutes for them to go down and come back up. At the gates I was able to use my Alipay app and so I got the lift down. The mountains were spectalular from that point of view as well.

Down the mountain there were 2-3 different bus lines and I didn’t know which one would take me back to the gates so I just hopped to one. That took me to another scenic area but I was already tired and when I saw an information booth I went there and asked how I could get back. The lady told me where to wait for a bus and so without a long wait I was back where I started from.

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This is the famous Hallelujah mountain.

[Bamboo Grove]

I have to excuse, there are some illogical orders in the photos. I had a problem with my computer, it was trying to update to Windows 11 but wasn't successful so it took me three tries to post this last one. I am back to my W10 now and hopefully it will work ok. However, it looks like I may need to buy a new computer in the near future as this one isn't sufficient for W11.

[pharvey]

Cracking photo's and Report BG. Having lived and travelled in China for a fair few years, I'm still amazed at some of the "Rock Structures" - quite incredible. Many more for you to see though!!

Keep the reports and photo's coming!!

[Bamboo Grove]

Day 4

10 mile Gallery

This morning I was a bit lazy to get up and then went to the park without having breakfast, thinking it would be easy enough to have something to eat once I’m there. I took a bus to the area called 10 mile gallery. This was basically a valley in between two mountain ranges and there was a tram, which you could take both ways. It wasn’t 10 miles long, only about 4 and I decided to take the tram uphill and walk down.

Once I arrived at the tram stop at the other end there was in fact small eateries and I had my simple fried noodle brunch there. After that I walked back to the starting point and the scenery was nice even looking up from the valley.

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It was a hot day so I just took another bus to the same area where I found the bus back to the park’s entrance the day before. There was another valley here but the area was full of monkeys and from the experience I have about these things from my Hua Hin days, I didn’t fancy a walk there. I took the bus back to the entrance and walked to downtown area. There was really nothing there, Wulingyuan is a small place so I bought some refreshments and returned to my lodgings by bus.

[Bamboo Grove]

Day 5

Huang Long cave

The night before the weather forcast had predicted heavy rain for the whole day. I had thought that I’d stay in my room and have a day of rest. In the mornining around 11.00 there was no rain and I had noticed that near my hotel a bus would go to a cave area, called Huang Long cave (Yellow dragon cave). So as it was not raining, I thought, I might as well go and see what’s there. It took about half an hour to get there by the bus and an elderly Chinese man noticed I was looking at the map on my phone to see where to get off, so he said to me, I am getting off at that particular bus stop so I’ll tell you when to do it.

That’s what he did and I could see the entrance to the cave area near the bus stop. I walked to buy the ticket and entered the cave. Truly it was the best cave I’ve ever been in. It reminded me a bit of the cave in Ratchaburi but without the humidity and this one had well paved paths inside. It was a long walk with steep steps up and down again but it was worth it. There was also a short, about 20 min. boat ride on a lake inside the cave.

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When I finally came out I was quite tired but happy that I had decided to see the place. There was still no rain, it had rained when I was inside the cave but it didn’t look that it was a heavy rain. I didn’t feel like walking any more so I just took the bus back to the hotel and spent the next day at the guest house. On my return I asked the guest house owner to book me a taxi for next day to take me to Zhangjiajie town, where I’d spend the next two days. I said that I had paid 100 Yuan for the taxi from there and he said, he’d get me one for the same price.

[Big Boy]

Nice cave. Better than the one in Ratchaburi I think, but looks on a par with the one in Ha Long Bay.

[Bamboo Grove]

I have been to the one in Ha Long Bay and I still think the one in ZJJ is the best I've seen. The Ha Long one is rather short compared to this one and I can't recall any river or lake inside the Ha Long cave.