Zhangjiajie | Hunan Province
We leave the two big cities Beijing & Shanghai behind us and head into the countryside/mountains called Zhangjiajie in the Hunan province. Luckily, we can book train tickets on a Chinese-English App but even 2-3 days before travel day, the trains are mostly booked out. Only 2 options remain, either Business class on a bullet train which costs an arm and a leg or a hard seat (second lowest ticket after standing) on a K train which is the cheapest high-speed train and oldest we assume. We opted for the latter and not looking forward to the 20h train ride from Shanghai to Zhangjiajie City. As the class name implies, the seat is pretty hard after sitting on it for a couple of hours. Things are getting way worse when all the chain-smoking Chinese passengers started smoking. China is one of the top countries that smoke the most. After a few hours amongst the smoke, we can feel the effects: headache, dizziness, nausea. Not sure how all the kids must feel in our carriage.


But in the end, we arrived at the stunning Forest Park of Zhangjiajie which has the UNESCO Global Geopark label as well as the heritage site.

We had hoped to camp in the park, but were advised at the entrance this wasn’t safe enough, so we had to find some accommodation fairly quickly. The reason why it wasn’t safe became apparant within 15 minutes of entering. A large macaque saw us, walked over and mugged us for our food bag (Dave didn’t last 10secs before throwing the whole bag at it in fear) making off with a pot noodle. Lesson learned and time to find somewhere to stay. With the help of two Germans (who actually live in China) and a local we found a guesthouse just outside the Western park entrance. We seem to be the only guests, apart from cockroaches and a Huntsman spider (the size of that thing cannot be seen from the picture below; bigger than a handspan!)


Next day, we explored one part of the park by taking the cable car first thing (not a Doppelmayer!) in the morning when it was foggy and misty. The morning was then spent wondering around the plateau and admiring the crazy quartz sandstone pinnacles, a result of many years of erosion.

For anyone who has seen the movie Avatar, Pandora might have been inspired by this unreal but absolutely beautiful scenery.


While we spent the morning having a bird’s eye view of these pinnacles, we then spent the afternoon on the valley floor walking the very scenic Golden Whip Stream looking up to the spiky peaks from below in awe. All in all, we walked about 15km, mainly up and down the many steps.



Next day, we decided to explore another area of the Forest Park called Tianzi Mountains, apparently even more beautiful. To get there, we found an off-the-beaten path across, again with many steps but half overgrown and deep in the rainforest between the sandstone pillars and it felt like we are on an expedition to find some hidden village. To get up the pillars we took another cablecar (this time it was a Doppelmayer and a Swiss construction company).


We initially thought it would be an easier day on the feet and knees but it seemed we walked 18km in total, again mainly up and down the steps to either ascend or descend to the pinnacles. We also got to ride a mini mono-rail across the valley as time to get back to our valley was running out.

On our third and final day we really did try to take it easy, enjoying the third cable car ride, checking out some viewpoints before taking an electric golfcart out to fields in the sky - a paddy field on top of one of the rocky stacks.



We then hiked up to an old cliffside mansion before descending the valley through the rainforest and spotting lots of different coloured bugs.




What a fantastic few days exploring this unique landscape!
