View of the River In Zhangjiajie

I sent my friend to the Zhangjiajie train station on his way to the Guangzhou. It will be another grueling train ride for him. This one will probably be worse since there would be a no one to talk to. As for me, I will also be leaving Zhangjiajie City the following morning. It is still quite bright and I still have some time in my hands, I decided to do a little exploring of some parts of the city.

Nice Little Walkway Along the River

I took a bus supposedly to go back to the hotel but there was a horrendous traffic jam because of some road work. I got off the bus and started walking towards the hotel. I passed by this bridge which crosses a nice little river. It looked nice so I decided to take a short walk along the its banks.

Church in Zhangjiajie City

Zhangjiajie City itself is just another modern Chinese city, and there is really little distinguish it from all the other Chinese cities. Walking along the banks of the river, I noticed that the river itself was quite clean with hardly any trash. It was also a little deep since it has this bluish tinge on it. There were small boats plying the river but all in all it was a quiet little river.

Small Boats Along the River

I chanced upon this Christian church and wondered where it was possible to attend church services there. Unfortunately, they were closed, and it was a Sunday! I guess I was spoiled since churches where I grew up were always open, except maybe at night. Anyway, the church itself stands out from the rest of the Chinese built apartments and buildings. The distinctive western style building and spire make it quite prominent along the river.

Surprisingly, there were no eating places along the river, maybe they were one a different part of the river. But from where I was, I didn’t see any restaurants making it an ideal place to take a stroll. This was a refreshing change from all the mountain climbing and hiking we have been doing these past few days. I’m glad I gave this a try.

Related Posts:

On the Shores of the Ayeyarwaddy River

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Loboc River

Smoked Meat

From the cable car station in Zhangjiajie, we quickly hailed a cab to bring us to lunch/dinner. Our taxi driver was another one of those chatty types and we wasted no time in asking whether or not we were interested to see a cultural park. Obviously, we didn’t have time for the since we were starving. We politely asked him to bring us to our hotel.

Home Style Tofu

I asked him what is a nice place to eat here in Zhangjiajie. He recommended this place Jiudouliang Restaurant 九斗粮酒楼, which was conveniently near our hotel, we just needed to cross the street to get back to our hotel. He was babbling about how nice the place is, most expecially how nice the ambience is. According to him, most of the restaurants around here do not have that ambience anymore, but the one he is recommending to us is nice. In fact, he eats there once in a while.

Entrance to the Restaurant

He recommended a few dishes which would amount to a hundred RMB, no thanks, we are on a budget. Anyway, it seemed that he really liked this place and kept talking about it. I’m sure we can find some thing not too expensive to eat there. He finally got there and just drove off. I was half expecting him to get a commission for bringing customers there. At least someone wasn’t out to earn money off of us.

Table in the Dining Room

Jiudouliang Restaurant has that old Chinese building style. In fact, it is more Tujia than the traditional houses seen elsewhere. This is after all a Tujia restaurant. Tujia is one of the minority group in Hunan province, some of their dishes have become characteristic of Hunan food. The place looks like it is pretty old and it made of wood, at least most parts of it. They brought us to the dining area which looks more like a dining area of a house than a restaurant. This must be the ambience that the taxi driver was talking about. The dining area is divided by nice wooden sliding doors. It even has a small altar of its own. Our table is made out of solid wood and it quite big for us, since was meant for 12 people.

Central Altar in the Restaurant

We quickly looked through the menu and true enough there were some stuff which is quite expensive, most especially the fish dishes which ran into the hundreds. It seemed to be their specialty. We ordered the standard stuff, barbecued meat and the home style beancurd. Fortunately, the dishes were much better than the similar dishes elsewhere. The food is cooked the traditional way, meaning over a wood fire, not a stove. The smoked meat is made by them and can be seen from the entrance.

Carpentry Area Outside the Restaurant

It was a really nice place to eat in, but being only two people we couldn’t order that many. At times the room can get quite spooky too since it wasn’t that bright inside. The ambience was great and the food was better than average, although we didn’t get to try the more expensive ones. My friend quickly ate and left for the hotel as soon as he could. He still needed to pack and freshen up before the long trip to Guangzhou. I sat their inthe dining room eating myself getting a preview of how it is to eat alone in China.

Related Posts:

Dinner at Chang De You Yi Jia 常德又一家

Dinner at Zhangjiajie

Hunan Lunch at Fenghuang

Spectacular Scenery from the Cable Car

For just half a day of exploring Tianmenshan, it sure feels like I already spent a whole day there. However, this is different from the kind of walking we had back when we were walking up the mountain to Yuanjiajie. That one took a whole three hours to reach the top. While the walk around Tianmenshan was like a nice stroll along the park. In fairness, there was an easier way up to Yuanjiajie, we were just too ignorant to know about it.

Terraced Fields Along the Way

So which one will I recommend? I would have to say Zhangjiajie over Tianmenshan. Tianmenshan doesn’t feel like a wilderness, and with the tour group chasing us, the experience there wasn’t very good. The Tianmen Cave was impressive, but not as impressive as seeing the hundreds of limestone peaks of Yuanjiajie. In good viewing conditions, the view would be spectacular.

Tianmenshan has an air of artificiality about it, though it is not lacking in natural sights of its own. The limestone cliffs and views from the top of the mountain are truly outstanding. But with the promotion of Tongtian Avenue and the Tianmen Temple. It feels much more touristy. In fact, Tianmenshan even has a theme song! It sounded like one of those patriotic Chinese songs.

Over the Train Station

The way back to Zhangjiajie is much more relaxing than the way up, there were much less people going down this time of the day so we had the cable car all to ourselves. We went out taking shot after shot of the spectacular scenery. More so my friend, since this will be his last day in Zhangjiajie. He will be leaving that afternoon by train to Guangzhou.

Cable Car Station in Zhangjiajie City

It is also fortunate that we are heading back now, since I left my good camera battery charging at the hotel. The one I was using was a three to four year old battery, and I do no know how long it would last. Lucky for me, the battery lasted me this long, and I didn’t get to miss any wonderful shots.

As the cable car station at Zhagjiajie City loomed ever closer, I thought that I will be speaking Chinese the rest of the trip. I guess it would be a good way to sharpen my Chinese.

Related Posts:

Cableway to Tianmenshan 天门山

Tongtian Avenue 通天大道

Tianmen Cave 天门洞

Tianmen Cave 天门洞

Probably one of the reasons where people visit Tianmenshan is to be able to see the Tianmen Cave. This is probably the reason why the park was built in the first place. Tianmen Cave is not actually a cave but a hole in the mountain that formed naturally. Since the entire Tianmenshan area is massive limestone deposit, caves naturally form here. In this case a hole in the mountain.

Taking Tongtian Avenue to the Cave

To get to the “cave”, you need to take a cable car ride halfway down the mountain where you transfer to a bus. The bus will then take you to the cave but not before passing through the 99 turns of Tongtian Avenue 通天大道. The bus will deposit you at the foot of the steps leading up to the “cave”.

The foot of the cave is a wonderful photo opportunity with the hole in the mountain as the background. One opportunity worth waiting for is for sunlight to shine through the hole with mist or smoke illuminating the way.

Give Up Yet?

Something, I think I’m getting used to here in China, are long flights of stairs. Tianmenshan is no different, to reach the hole visitors will need to climb the Climbing Heaven Stairs 上天梯. The Climbing Heaven Stairs has a total of 999 steps, the number 9 is again referring to the number of palaces in heaven.

From the way the stairs look, it would seem that there would be rest stops with the stairs flattening to let climbers rest, but this is actually an illusion. To my horror, there is no flat surface (unless you count the ones outside the stairs), in those portions, the steps are just wider, from afar, it would give the impression that it is flatter there.

This would mean there would be little space for resting in the relentless climb up towards the hole. With the amount of people climbing up, you do not want to be in the way either. I would just try to catch my breath ever few minutes and continue in my march to the top.

View of the Cave From the Inside

At one point while I was resting, I saw a elderly lady pass me. I though to myself, “I won’t let an old lady pass me, I need to get there first!”. With renewed vigor, I continued my assault to the mountaintop. At one point, it seemed like the old lady has more vigor than I, maybe she climbs this flight of stairs everyday. Fortunately, her husband seemed to be slowing her down and I reached the top earlier than she did.

I took a while to catch my breath before starting to take in the wonderful scenery from the top. From here, you can see a great view of Zhangjiajie City. One the other side, there seemed to be some development going on but it was still not open to the public when we visited. There were freelance photographers waiting for customers and we wondered whether or not we can earn a few bucks here.

What's On The Other Side

Surprisingly, the cave was only formed recently, in the 2nd century, a portion of the moutain, then known at Songliang Mountain 嵩梁山, collapsed revealing a huge hole in the mountain. Since then the mountain was renamed Tianmenshan, which means Heaven’s Gate Mountain, obviously the hole is the gate.

In the late 90′s a group of aerial performers, flew a group of planes through the hole. This was part of some publicity stunt which was broadcast throughout China, and thus watched by almost a billion people.

The Way Down

I still find it amazing how the Chinese managed to package this entire place for tourism. A hole is the mountain is now a major RMB/dollar earner. Anyway, after all the photo taking, we walked back down and took our bus back to the cable car station. I could say that, even if the entrance fee to the park is rather steep, the sights from the cable car, the walk around the mountain and finally the Tianmen Cave, it would seem to be well worth the entrance fee. Who knows, by this time, they have added a couple more attractions to this splendid park.

Related Posts:

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Tongtian Avenue 通天大道

Going down Sumaguing Cave

Tianmen Temple

We finally passed the big tour group which is ruining our photos. The path was a nice forested area and with the cool mountain air, it was really a nice walk. We then stumbled into a temple. This temple is the Tianmen Temple. It is a pretty attractive temple and it seemed to be newly built. In fact, it seemed like it was still under construction when we got there.

Courtyard of Tianmen Temple

There were hardly and visitors in this area, and it seems like the tour groups did not include this temple in their itinerary, which is a good thing. There is a central pavillion three levels high. Although it wasn’t that tall it was very attractive. I don’t really go for these type of “artificial” attractions but since we were already here we might as we enjoy it. There were several Chinese style building surrounding the pavillion and were likewise attractive. There used to be an old temple heere but it has since be replaced. It was too bad since I wanted to see the older temple as well.

It was nice to be in this area since it appeared to be under the radar of the tour groups. By now, it would have been fully opened to the public and to the tour groups. We were fortunate enough to be there without the maddening crowds.

Related Posts:

Around Mahabodhi Temple

Po Lin Monastery 宝莲禅寺

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Tourists Admiring the View

A wonderful way of exploring Tianmenshan is on foot. From the cable car station there is a path that leads directly to the walking trail. This is not a rough it out kind of walking trail. Since the path is cemented and is pretty much flat. The path does wind through some spectacular scenery as you can see here.

Spectacular Views From the Top

The path is pretty much a platform built along the mountain support by nothing more than a few pillars at a time. To look down from the pathway is a sure way to get vertigo. However, the view is nothing short of stupendous. The only turn off for me is that there were a lot of flag-toting tourists coming our way, and we photographers had to make sure we stay a step ahead of them.

Need to Stay Ahead of Them

I have come to realize that joining these flag-toting tour groups is not nice at all. The leader of the group will always hurry the group along to the next stop. So much that there would be no time for the group members to take photos or even appreciate the wonderful scenery around them. Since we were trying to avoind the tour group we had to be even faster than them. I didn’t realize how stressful it could be. They really moved that fast and the members of these tour groups weren’t that young either. The group leader just kept pushing and pushing. I don’t think joining the tour group is worth that.

Path Hugs the Mountain Whichever Way it Goes

After a while we came to a fork and didn’t know where to go, we actually needed them to point out the way and we immediately overtook them and eventually lost them. Only then could we finally catch our breath.

Related Posts:

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Nine Horse Painting Mountain 九马画山

Tianmen Temple 天门寺

Multiple Turns of Tongtian Avenue

The Tianmenshan cableway runs 7.8 kilometers from Zhangjiajie City to Tianmenshan park. Closer to the end of the cableway, there is another amazing piece of engineering. The Tongtian Avenue is a long road cut along side the mountain to the main tourist attraction of Tianmenshan. One significant feature of Tongtian Avenue is that it has exactly 99 turns. Heaven supposedly has 9 palaces.

Dare To Drive Here?

The road, as seen from the cable car is very long and indeed it turns quite a lot. I would just have to take their word for it that it really was 99 turns. Sometimes the road would even turn on itself. And to quote the Chinese hype about this avenue. It is like a dragon soaring to the heavens. I would pity the driver who needs to travel this road since doesn’t seem to be easy to drive on.

See The Bus?

There really was a lot of investment that went into the Tianmenshan park. Tongtian Avenue is just another example of this investment, no wonder the entrance fee to the park is so expensive. This place better be worth it.

Related Posts:

Tianmen Cave 天门洞

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Cableway to Tianmenshan 天门山

Soaring High Above the Fields

We started early the next day we want to be able come back here by early afternoon. Our next stop in Zhangjiajie is another national park going by the name of Tianmenshan 天门山 or Heavenly Gate Mountain, a name you shall soon understand. To go to Tianmenshan, visitors will have to go to go to the main road near the train station. There are a lot of taxi drivers and touts who will persuade you to buy the ticket from them. I have no idea whether these people are con artists or whether they do this for the commission, but there was little point to entertain them when the ticket booth we right there.

Cable Car Station in Zhangjiajie City

Visitors will need to pay the park entrance fee here. Unlike the ticket at Zhangjiajie National Park, this ticket is only valid for only one day. It was reluctant to come here since this place sound like a huge made-up attraction, but my friend was really interested in visiting this place so I went with him.

Local Chinese Washing Clothes

The actual park itself is several kilometers away. And the only way to the park is by taking the world longer cable car ride. I thought that sounded pretty exciting. I can see the mountains in the distance and it really sounded quite outrageous that we would be taking a cable car all the way there.

There weren’t really a lot of people going to the park at this time, so we were still able to have a car all to ourselves. As expected the ride was spectacular. It first started from the cable car station then over some parts of the city. But after that it was all rural farmland. It was wonderful to see at rural folk going about their business while we soar higher and higher above.

Spectacular View From the Cable Car

The farmlands soon gave way to rugged mountains. We would find ourselves staring at the mountains and valleys far below us. At one point, the distance between two cable car towers were so great they were actually on two separate mountains. This is another record for this cable car ride as it is the longest distance between two cable car towers. It is a wonder, that the towers can support the massive weight of the cables.

Fortunately for us, the winds weren’t that strong so our car wasn’t saying very wildly. We enjoyed the ride up the mountain and it took us more than 30 minutes to get to the park. It was truly a wonderful ride, and as my friend said, the cable car ride was already worth the entrance fee.

Related Posts:

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Tongtian Avenue 通天大道

On Top of Mount Tai 泰山

Zhangjiajie Train Station 张家界火车站

We had a very exhausting day exploring the wonderful Zhangjiajie National Park, but coming from the park we needed to make a detour to the Zhangjiajie Train Station where we needed to purchase train tickets for my friend. He will be leaving the next day for Guangzhou. I’m sure it will be another uncomfortable ride in the train but that is the cheapest way to Guangzhou from here.

Stir Fried Bell Peppers

I was surprised to see that the train station of Zhangjiajie City is very modern and not unlike an airport terminal. It is very bright and clean, I’m pretty certain that there won’t be too many passengers here unlike what we experienced in Chengdu. Purchasing the ticket was pretty straightforward although the lady was asking me something which I didn’t understand, I just said yes to it. It turned out that she was asking whether I wanted air-conditioned carriage of not, but it didn’t really matter. It also turned out that I forgot to ask for aisle seats so my friend ended up with seats in between two people.

Smoked Pork Belly

We got a bus back to where our hotel was and had a well deserved dinner. We couldn’t find any other place in that area so we just ended up at the same restaurant we ate the previous day, it wasn’t that bad anyway.

I ordered a couple of dishes, this would probably be the last time I would be able to order this much during this trip since my friend will be leaving the next day. I ordered a vegetable dish, which wasn’t really anything special. The next one was the smoked pork belly, I’ve already had this a couple of times here in China and I can’t seem to have enough of it. It is as nice as ever.

Traditional Tofu Dish

The final dish was tofu as it is prepared by the farmers. This is quite delicious with the tofu fried and then cooked in a salty sauce. The texture of the tofu soaks the sauce so well that a bite into it just releases a wonderful flavor. I will still be in Hunan for a couple more days so I need to make the most of this, since I probably won’t have anyone to speak to for the next few weeks.

Related Posts:

Dinner in Jiudouliang Restaurant 九斗粮酒楼

Dinner at Chang De You Yi Jia 常德又一家

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Bailong Elevator 百龙电梯

From the carpark of Yuanjiajie, one can choose to either go down by bus or surprisingly by elevator. The Bailong Elevator 百龙电梯 is a fun way to go down the mountain. It is also said to be the highest and heaviest outdoor elevator in the world. It is carved on the side of the mountain and it is quite impressive. I was half expecting it to have a fee to use it and true enough there was one.

Closest View I Could Get Of The Elevator

Fortunately, there weren’t really a lot of people at that time so we just went straight to the elevator and went down. Unfortunately, the view from above only lasts a short while since the rest of the time, the elevator in inside the mountain. It was also extremely fast visitors will be down to ground level in a few seconds. That would explain how this elevator is also considered the elevator with the highest capacity and also the fastest.

Karst Peaks Surrounding The Elevator

From ground level visitors can get a view of the elevator but it is too high up too see much of it. A zoom lens should be able to bring the elevator much closer into view but even with that there is not much one can see. From the ground level there are still limestone mountains surrounding the area and at the time of our visit, the sun was casting a nice orangle glow on the peaks. From here one can take another bus down to the main parking lot at the entrance. We needed to hurry down since there might not be transportation going out of the park at night. We do not want to take a taxi all the way back to Zhangjiajie city.

Zhangjiajie National Park is a truly remarkable park. The countless limestone peaks are truly a sight to behold, I would have wanted to explore the park a little bit more the next day but my friend wanted to see something else. I guess this is it for Zhangjiajie for me. It is really worth another visit if only to get the perfect shot of those magnificent karst peaks.

Related Posts:

Yuanjiajie 袁家界

Heading Back to Zhangjiajie

Cableway to Tianmenshan 天门山