ZhangJiaJie
And with that, it was the end of my solo trip! Moving on, I went to this place called Zhangjiajie (张家界) to meet up with my classmates who were already here for a night. This place was the perfect set up for a village glamaway, with a town that has everything you need, natural attractions all around and of course, a great group of friends to hang out and share this with.
Zhangjiajie is surrounded with many scenic attractions, two of which that we visited were the famed the Wu Ling Yuan Scenic and Historic Interest Area (武陵源风景名胜区) and TianMen Fairy Mountain (天门山). Of the two days we spent there, we went to the WuLingYuan first and the hike was amazing! The first glance of the mountain was breathtaking already, with thick fog circling the peak of the mountains (Kinda similar to the fantasy Chinese novels). The river was very transparent and clear, so much so there it was like drinking water. The air was fresh and lacked the industrial particles, so it was purifying (especially for the lungs XD). The leaves were green. … Ok that sounded dumb but that was really what it was in its actual state, which was different from the trees we see in cities. Just the perfect area to take a hike. As we moved along, we could really appreciate not just the scenery, but also nature in its natural state. For example, along the way we saw two monkeys, one on top of another, and it was very heartwarming because the monkey carrying the other monkey was feeding the baby monkey it was carrying, simply beautiful. Also, the higher we moved along, the more foggy it became, and we could see the other side of nature, for what it was. The fog became thicker and since we were still in the forest, it was as if nature placed a veil around us, adding a touch of mystery into what was already a very scenic attraction.
We slowly climbed our way up to the top and oh man was it tiring. This brought me back to the good old days of National Service when we had to sing in order to feel better. Of course, Im not talking about the army cheers, but the latest hits from China! After all, who doesn’t love good Chinese songs when they travel right? XD In any case, in one way or another, we managed to make it to the top of the mountain and the sight was in a sense, magical (for me at least). There was a lot of fog surrounding the mountain top, which shrouded it with a cloak of mystery.
There was one thing that bothered us as we travelled though, which was how a few other tourists disregarded the signs in the mountains, such as feeding the wild animals. By doing so they make future tourists who visit the area more vulnerable to attacks by such wild animals, because the animals would grow reliant on such feeding and may attack if such feedings do not occur What they did really endangered not only the other fellow tourists, but also the animals themselves. The animals do not know what they are ingesting and the toursits would not know what the wild animals may end up eating. I chanced upon a monkey that ate an entire wrapper. What would have happened if the monkey choked on the wrapper? I guess that tourist would never know. I don’t know whether anyone would read this but for those who do, please give it a thought, give the environment and nature a thought as well.
Well enough with this serious talk, because coming up was Day 2! We were honestly more excited for this one because firstly, my friends went to the Wulingyuan the day before so it was pretty similar experience on Day 1. Secondly, this was a cable car trip up the mountain, so we didn’t need to climb anything (Thank goodness) and lastly, the famed glass bridge of Zhangjiajie was here!
HOWEVER! See life doesn’t always give you what you want and in our case, life decided to give us more fog than we asked. You see, we went up the mountain in high spirits, thinking that it’ll be perfect weather that was cooling. So we got on the cable, went through a pretty legit cable car experience (Please see below for awesome cable car time lapse), and got to the mountain top. Little did we know when we got onto the mountain top, it was cloudy and foggy. At first we thought it was normal, you know fog and mountain tops like the previous day? Then it got stormy. Like really stormy. Like pouring cats and dogs stormy. Oh man and so we had to brave the storm as we walked around the mountain top. But honesty, it wasn’t that that bad because with the fog on top, it was another visual experience when you can barely see another person 50m ahead of you.
