Travelling through China by trains in only 10 days
After Xi’an, I headed south with another long-distance train. There were two different destinations on my mind to visit in Central China. As Zhangjiajie and Fenghuang are only 4h bus ride apart, it made sense to visit both of them. Due to time constraints, I managed to spend 2 full days/3 nights in Zhangjiajie and half a day/1 night in Fenghuang.
Zhangjiajie National Forest Park
Home to the “Avatar” mountains. It said that the director for Avatar movie got his inspiration for the floating cliffs right from here. The landscape in the park truly is something unique. Pillar-like formations made of quartzite sandstone rise from the valley floor over 200 meters straight up. It is noted that there are more than 3000 of these pillars in the area.
Since I only had 1 day to spend in this huge park I had to make the most of it. I can already say that one day is definitely not enough and it is advisable to plan at least 3 days in the park itself alone. Anyways, I stayed in a hostel in the city and on the first morning took a local bus to the entrance of the park. The 3-day entrance ticket for the part cost 228 CNY (30 €). My route for the day was the following:
- Wulingyuan entrance;
- Free bus to Ten-mile Gallery Bus stop;
- Walk the Ten Mile Gallery + Heavenly Platform until Tianzi Pavilion (viewing platforms);
- Free bus to Avatar Hallelujah mountain viewpoint, Natural Bridge, Enchanting Terrace;
- Walk from the viewpoint along the Golden Whip Stream scenic route until South-West Entrance.
In China, they like to be the best at everything and construct mega-buildings which are the biggest and largest in the world. So in the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, they have:
- Worlds’ highest, tallest and longest glass bridge. It was just opened for the public in late 2017 and has become quite an attraction after that. It is 430 meters long and situates 218 meters above the valley floor.
- Bailong elevator is a glass elevator which is built outside onto the side of a huge cliff in the Wulingyuan area. With a height of 326 meters, it is claimed to be the highest and heaviest outdoor elevator in the world.
Tianmen mountain
I spent my second day in Zhangjiajie visiting Tianmen mountain. There is a cable-car which starts in the centre of the city and takes you all the way up to Tianmen mountain. With the total length of almost 8 km and ascent 1200 meters it is claimed to be the “longest passenger cableway of high mountains in the world“. The entrance ticket for the mountain (including the cable car and a bus back down) was 245 CNY (32 €).
The mountain itself is spectacular since it also rises steeply up from the valley floor. The Chinese have constructed kilometres of paths onto the cliff face and it is possible to walk on the narrow paths hanging above the valley all around the mountain.
Fenghuang
On the following morning, I took a bus (80 CNY = 10 €) to Fenghuang (or Phoenix Ancient Town) – the most beautiful ancient city in China. After arrival at the bus station in the outskirts of the city, I decided to walk to the centre and find my hostel which I had booked previously. It did not take long until local groups of children started to approach me to practise their English a bit and take photos with me.
I had only half a day to spend in the town since I had to figure out the way to Huaihua the following day from where I had already previously booked the next train furthermore south.
Fenghuang is really a beautiful town but also a bit strange. It does not take much to walk around the whole town and see most of it. After a small sightseeing and a quick rest back in the hostel, I went out again in the evening for some dinner. I was thinking to myself that it is going to be a nice calm dinner with some local food next to the riverside with live music and lights but the town turned out to be in a different mood at night time. All the nightclubs started to open their doors and blasting loud bass music. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy a good party but it seemed a bit out of place in this kind of ancient town.
Travelling in China
Within these few days, I really realized how complicated it is to travel in China if you do not speak the local language. They do not speak English whatsoever. In order to get some information about the mountains, parks and buses I spoke with the reception through language translation apps. It was more complicated but still amazing how easy it actually is to have understandable conversations with people you do not speak a common language with through hand signs and translator apps.
Besides the language barrier, it is not possible to use Visa/Mastercard and buy tickets for trains, buses yourself. Someone needs to do it for you. Long-distance train tickets run out quickly as well and so I was forced to schedule and buy all of my train tickets for China already 3-4 weeks prior to entering the country. That does not leave you with a lot of flexibility which I am usually used to. For all of my train tickets in China, I used the following website –
https://www.china-diy-travel.com/en/
After Fenghuang, I took an early morning bus to Huaihua from where I had another long-distance train with a direction to the south-coast – Guangzhou.
