Ah, Zhangjiajie. This area in northern Hunan province is reknowned for its unique mountainous scenery. People from all over China travel to Zhangjiajie to see its famous national park. Popularity has risen even higher since the mountains have inspired the flying rocks in the Avatar movie (with the blue guys, not The Last Airbender).
In the whole area, there are two main 5A attractions. The first one is Tianmen mountain, which can be accessed by cableway from the city centre. The second one is the national park at Wulingyuan. We visited both.
While the view from Tianmen mountain is definitely amazing, I would not recommend doing it, as it is very pricy to take the cable car and the queue is 5-7 hours long. Up the mountain are some nice paths you can take. There are also two glass floor "skywalks", but you have to pay about €2/p.p. extra for that.
Forest path on Tianmen mountain
The really interesting part about Zhangjiajie is the national park at Wulingyuan. Here you can find the scenery that made Zhangjiajie so famous. The park features stone paths and hiking trails that allow for several days of hiking. We stayed in a hostel up in the mountains, which was definitely a good idea, because you can see a lot more of the park that way. You should not expect any more comfort than the absolute mimimum though.
The famous Zhangjiajie scenery, as it is found in the national park.
The park is the most beautiful after the rain, when you can see a "sea of clouds" in between the sharp rocky cliffs.
Our travel party. One person is missing from this picture: Xu Haoshuang, who travelled with us for 10 days.
And to finish up this article: here's an old Chinese song I'm totally into. I think it fits my mood in Zhangjiajie well. :p
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