The visit to Wulingyuan national reserve, 35 kms north of Zhangjiajie, was supposed to be a highlight of the trip. With massive vertical sandstone peaks, it was where the “Avatar” film was made. I’ve been three times. The first was a delight with beautiful weather and sparse crowds. The second was misty weather where we could only see half-way up the peaks and big crowds. Today was sunny but very hot and humid (we were soaked in sweat) and the crowds were humungous. We joined an enormous queue and went up the Bailong Sky Elevator before emerging and fighting our way along the path to the “First Bridge in Heaven”. We were virtually carried over it by a surging throng of people and didn’t have time to make the statutory wish for peace, happiness and prosperity. We then passed two of the classic viewpoints and wanted to follow the path down to the bottom but all the signposts pointed to the Sky Elevator so we joined another massive queue before taking the 30-second journey down the cliff and joining another massive queue at the bottom to get the bus back to the park entrance. We spent 10 times more time standing in queues than looking at the sights. The Chinese are trying hard to make the park accessible to everyone (we got in free for being over 65) and there is an endless stream of buses with pictures of monkeys on the side taking people about, but when literally hundreds of thousands are wanting to go all at once, it becomes a nightmare. The park has become a victim of the huge increase in living standards in recent years with hundreds of millions now able to travel round the country visiting the tourist areas which used to be available only for the richer end of society. The taxi driver who took us back to the town got very confused when we arrived at the Atour hotel, but covered with flashing neon signs it looked very different to our hotel, so we got him to take us to the bus station which is only 5 minutes away. He dropped us on the other side of the huge sprawling station and we had a long walk before we saw the hotel, which is where he had taken us in the first place. Chinese towns are very different in the dark as they become covered in garish neon signs in a multitude of colours.
The internet is very slow in Fenghuang and pictures are taking a long time to upload. So I’ll do one a day for the time being.
Dancing in a public square