Zhangjiajie Self-Guided Travelogue: Off the Beaten Path — A Practical Guide
Many people who come back from tour groups say Zhangjiajie is stunning and a must-visit. This time I gathered 4 fellow backpackers to see just how ordinary it really is, and also to visit the legendary Fenghuang Ancient Town, said to be China's most beautiful small city. Our train arrived late in Zhangjiajie the next morning. We didn't join a tour group this time and instead contacted a well-known local guide...
This article is compiled from the original travel notes on the "Zhangjiajie Tour Guide Network" (33519.com); it is a record of trips from earlier years. Time-sensitive information such as ticket prices, schedules, and accommodation prices is subject to the latest announcements from scenic areas and transportation authorities; the itinerary ideas and attraction introductions still have reference value.
Many people who come back from tour groups all say Zhangjiajie is very beautiful and a must-visit. This time I invited 4 travel buddies to go see just how ordinary it really is, and also to visit the legendary most beautiful small town in China, Fenghuang Ancient Town.
Our train arrived in Zhangjiajie the next morning, late. This time we did not join a tour group, but contacted a famous local travel buddies club, and the guide they arranged in advance came to pick us up. When we exited the station, we saw Huang Amei (Tujia people call young women Amei) standing at the exit holding a cardboard sign with our names on it. We all called her Huang Amei.
Under her leadership, at 10:30 we got on the tour bus heading to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, and for the next 3 days we played entirely in this park. When we say traveling to Zhangjiajie, it mainly means playing here, and we joined Huang Amei's three-day, two-night all-inclusive package (470 yuan per person, tickets, 5 main meals and 2 breakfasts, 2 nights' accommodation, 3 days of guide service. A 100,000 yuan travel liability insurance was included), which saved us all worries, and from then on we only needed to enjoy ourselves easily!
The park ticket is 248 yuan, valid for only two days. But that didn't matter to us, because we could stay on the mountain and play as many days as we liked. Tour groups can only stay outside the park, because now, to protect the scenic area, all the regular hotels on the mountain have been torn down.
First we toured the Golden Whip Stream Grand Canyon. This place is a natural oxygen bar. The canyon is more than 1,000 kilometers long, and inside there are many rare animals and precious medicinal herbs. I couldn't help asking, how do they gather medicinal herbs on such high cliffs? Huang Amei said the mountain people climb to the highest point of the cliff, put ropes around the trees, then hang themselves and slowly lower themselves down along the way to gather them. On cliffs of more than 300 meters, the herb gatherers generally take 1 to 2 hours to climb to the top. Moreover, they only dare to go up the mountain to gather herbs in winter, because there are too many poisonous snakes in Zhangjiajie, and they must first wait for them to hibernate. Once at the top of the mountain, the mountain people do not dare enter the canyon. Inside the canyon there are bears, pangolins, leopards, wild boars, tigers (because tigers used to run out and hurt people, the locals poisoned quite a few with a poison called "Three-Step Fall"; now only very few remain in the canyon), and so on. Therefore, the interior of the canyon is still an undeveloped paradise, and must absolutely not be developed...
After about 2 hours of walking, the end of Golden Whip Stream is a place called Water Surrounding Four Gates. It is famous far and wide, with countless related stories and legends, and in the eyes of feng shui masters it is even more of a treasured place! The so-called Four Gates Surrounded by Water means that four waters—Golden Whip Stream, Suo Stream, Dragon Tail Stream, and Mandarin Duck Stream—flow together at the same time. It is said that in feng shui theory these four streams are four city gates, and a Son of Heaven is certain to emerge. Setting feng shui aside, a place where 4 streams flow through at the same time is already a major geographical highlight. Unfortunately, there are too many shops here and it is too commercialized, seriously affecting the photo-taking effect; you can only photograph the distant mountains and such.
After taking photos, we went up to Yuanjiajie. We took the Bailong Elevator up. That elevator is very thrilling, but you have to pay separately; it is not included in the ticket, and seemed to be 56 yuan.
After reaching the top of the mountain, we first settled down in a family inn in the scenic area, had lunch, and began touring Yuanjiajie. The biggest feeling was that it is really steep and precipitous here. Walking on the path, beside you are cliffs of several hundred meters, and some viewing platforms are even built on suspended rocks. Stepping on them makes you careful with every step, and you feel very uneasy inside, fully experiencing the feeling of "trembling with fear, as if on the brink of an abyss, as if treading on thin ice," but this is absolutely where the fun lies!
In addition, if you observe carefully under your feet, you will often find patterns of marine organisms on the ground. Haha, those are fossils. In ancient times this place was under the sea!! For example, this scenic spot called Turtle King Worshipping the Sun (or was it Divine Turtle Worshipping the Moon, I can't remember clearly -_-b), according to Huang Amei, is a sea turtle fossil. It sounds quite magical.
In the evening we left the Back Garden and returned to the family inn in the scenic area to rest. The conditions here were all pretty good, with private bathrooms, color TVs, and hot showers.
The next two days were the essence of this Zhangjiajie trip!!
The first scenic spot was "One Step Is Hard to Take." How is it hard to take? Between two mountains there is a distance of more than one meter, and below is an abyss of more than 300 meters. In the past travelers all relied on jumping across. An old professor from the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics of Peking University did not have a big enough step and fell down. The several Shanghai people traveling with him who had already jumped across were instantly stunned. They lay on the mountain not daring to move and only kept shouting, until rescue workers set up a path to let them pass. I estimate they will never dare come to Zhangjiajie again. The professor's corpse was rolled up in a mat by herb-gathering mountain people and pulled up. The professor's son buried him on Tianzi Peak and wrote, "One step is hard to take; one slip becomes eternal regret." Zhangjiajie's danger!! After that, no one dared cross again, until this iron bridge was built. Although there is an iron bridge, when we walked across we still felt gusts of cold wind beneath our feet and emptiness in our hearts. If there were no iron bridge, would I still dare cross??
The second scenic spot, Tianzi Seat. Walking here, looking left and right, all around are empty mountain valleys, very steep and precipitous. You can sit in the place shown in the second photo and take one too, but it is very dangerous, with no guardrail beside it. Huang Amei said that damned Li Xzhi once sat here in meditation for 3 days without eating or drinking, and the mountain people still have photos from that time.
At noon we went to Wulong Village and had lunch.
After lunch we went to Helong Park to see the bronze statue of He Long. There were many people here; it is a stop for tour groups, not very interesting. Marshal He Long was from Sangzhi near Zhangjiajie—you know that, right? The essence of the essence
Later, seeing there was still quite a lot of time, Huang Amei took us to an undeveloped scenic spot called something like Divine Soldiers Gathering. We went by chartered car, and the whole way was all rough roads, but when we saw the scenic spot, all of us screamed! There were no railings, and opposite was the Heaven Ladder, making you feel as if you were about to fall. When someone traveling with us pulled him over to take a photo, his legs went weak!
At night we returned to the family inn in the scenic area to stay, played cards...
On the third day, we entered another major scenic area of Zhangjiajie: Yangjiajie.
The first checkpoint in the village is called the Gate of Cards. The terrain is so strategically located that in the era of broadswords and spears, just 10-odd men guarding it could hold off thousands of troops. With such a natural stronghold, no wonder the bandits were so hard to suppress.
After passing the Gate of Cards and crossing the even more precipitous Three Passes, we finally arrived at Wulong Village. But there isn't much to see here—the bandit stories posted inside the houses are quite interesting though.
At the end of Wulong Village is what I consider the best scenic spot in Yangjiajie! Tianbo Mansion!
To get to Tianbo Mansion, you first cross a wooden bridge—again suspended over 300-plus meters, spanning a distance of 10-odd meters. And this time it swayed and wobbled as we walked, giving us another taste of heart-pounding excitement. At the end of the wooden bridge is an 80-degree iron ladder—quite hard to climb while holding a camera.
Finally we reached Tianbo Mansion. It really opened up suddenly! Naturally formed walls on all four sides
Over at Tianbo Mansion, two tourists were calling to their companions on the opposite side to come see such a beautiful sight. The ones on the other side said it was too dangerous and absolutely refused to come over. I felt it was such a pity—coming to Zhangjiajie, if you're timid you can't experience the true essence.
At Tianbo Mansion, Sister Huang told us some interesting things. She said Tianbo Mansion can sometimes be even more beautiful—when a sea of clouds phenomenon similar to Huangshan's occurs, a layer of thick mist spreads flat across the mountainside, looking like a vast white sea with a few mountain peaks jutting out, and the rolling mist like the waves of the sea. She made us so enchanted! But this all depends on luck. Sister Huang comes here almost every few days and has only seen it a few times.
After the meal, we took a bus to the Tianzi Mountain cableway, then took the cableway down the mountain, exited from Wulingyuan, and ended the pleasant trip to Zhangjiajie.