A Journey to Zhangjiajie's Western Route
Many people from Guangdong have visited Zhangjiajie. The popular classic attractions there are roughly Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Tianzi Mountain, Huanglong Cave, and so on. Few people think of making the long trek to the western route to see the smaller, more scattered attractions. A recent trip to Zhangjiajie's western route brought me a pleasant surprise—for example, learning Tujia customs at the Tujia Folk Customs Park...
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 from Guangdong have already traveled to Zhangjiajie, and the classic attractions that draw them there are probably Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Tianzi Mountain, Yellow Dragon Cave, and the like. Yet few think of making the long journey to the Western Route to see those small, scattered sights. A recent trip along Zhangjiajie's Western Route brought me a pleasant surprise—learning Tujia history at the Tujia Customs Park, and touring the Hundred-Mile Gallery accompanied by stories.
The Western Route, a different kind of charm.
1. Red Journey: He Long's Former Residence
For those not well versed in history, a trip to Sangzhi, the hometown of He Long, will be richly rewarding. Marshal He Long's former residence is a common wooden-framed, thatched-tile single-story house of western Hunan, its dark brown wood exuding a sense of vicissitude. The horse trough made of thatch long ago lost any smell of horses, but displayed beside the house, it still lets one imagine the scenes of the past. The Marshal often rode his horse through the mountains, meeting many people and laying the foundation for organizing military campaigns later on. In the same courtyard, a new exhibition room on He Long's life and deeds has been built, a brick-and-wood structure displaying 185 photographs from different periods of He Long's life and more than 50 cultural relics. In front of the old residence there is also a wind-and-rain bridge, built in 1916 and now renamed "He Long Bridge." The bridge is wooden, simple in style, and rich in ethnic character. Not far from He Long's former residence is the He Long Memorial Hall, where everyone also listened attentively to a lesson on revolution.
Near He Long's former residence is the Badagongshan Nature Reserve, which can be called the largest and best-preserved primeval forest in the region south of the Yangtze River in China.
2. A Calm Lake, a Careful View of the Hundred-Mile Gallery
If He Long's former residence seems a bit solemn, then Maoyan River is far more free and easy. On the calm-lake cruise along Maoyan River, what you hear most are stories of the Tujia emperor Qin Hou. Sitting on the cruise boat, a Tujia girl tells in a sweet voice of the various traces Qin Hou left along Maoyan River. The cave on the steep cliff to the left is Qin Hou Cave; the stone battlements below are Qin Hou's artillery platform. The fine, dense little waterfall on the right looks like a horse's mane—that was transformed from Qin Hou's warhorse after he was flayed to death by Zhu Yuanzhang, and it presumably wanted to stay here to keep watch over Qin Hou. And that pole at the cave mouth is said to be Qin Hou's clothes-drying pole. Someone wanted to climb up to investigate, but just as they reached the pole, there was suddenly thunder and lightning, and so that place became a mystery. Actually, even without those stories, lowering your head to gaze at the water and raising it to admire the mountains is an atmosphere quite complete in itself.
Besides these historical tales tinged with myth, what I cared about more was breathing the fresh air amid the green mountains and clear waters. The weather was a bit chilly, and standing at the bow of the boat was just right to dispel the fatigue from several hours of riding in a car on the way here—enough to make one clear-headed, and one's expression became relaxed and elegant as well. Occasionally greeting the people on the fishing boats nearby could also be counted as experiencing the warmth of the locals.
I don't know who first started jumping on the boat, but the photography enthusiasts found it interesting and snapped away madly from the top of the boat. I wasn't shy either, and pretended to be a model for others to photograph. With such beautiful scenery, to step into it and bring it home—why not?
Because of time constraints, I didn't experience rafting on Maoyan River. But it is said that the section in the lower reaches of Maoyan River has deep, secluded gorges, many shoals and waves, steep cliffs and perilous peaks, flying waterfalls and flowing springs, fantastically dangerous mountain forms, deep rocks and dense forests; the river water is swift as an arrow, fierce waves like galloping horses, splitting rocks and cutting through gorges, with peaks and paths turning—it is also indescribably wonderful.
3. Nine-Heaven Cave, Connected to the Sky
Hearing it was a karst cave, I originally had little interest. Karst caves are all more or less the same—the better ones keep their original ecology, while the worse ones are garishly colorful with obvious artificial traces. But once inside, I found this cave's greatest feature is that it has nine skylights connecting it to the sky. In 1988, more than 20 cave experts from 17 countries made three expeditions into Nine-Heaven Cave and found that the area inside open to visitors is more than 2.5 million square meters, divided into three main levels: upper, middle, and lower. The lowest level is 470 meters below ground level. Inside the cave there are 3 underground rivers, 12 waterfalls, 15 pools, 2 dragon wells, 5 natural bridges, 6 thousand-mound fields, 3 natural lakes, 5 ponds, more than 10 mountains within the cave, and 36 great halls. However, at present only 4 skylights can be seen.
4. Furong Town, a Memory of Film
Going to Furong Town was originally unplanned. But everyone wanted to see the place where Liu Xiaoping sold rice tofu—in the movie "Hibiscus Town," of course. Turning past the beautiful Lishui River, it takes just 5 minutes to reach Furong Town. The film location is on a small street in Furong Town, with stone-slab paths and wooden houses, and the air of antiquity is very well preserved. When we first arrived, many households on the street had lost power and were lighting dim yellow candles, which really made one feel dazed, unsure of what era one had arrived in. The place for eating rice tofu was very crowded, but compared with the rice tofu in the movie, it was different. Fellow tourists joked that in the movie, the old-time rice tofu was served in a big bowl: first a full bowl of rice tofu, then some soup poured over it. Now the bowl is smaller, and it's still a full bowl of soup first, then a little rice tofu added—the times have changed.
As we were about to leave, the sky poured down torrential rain. For Zhangjiajie in the dry season this was a good rain, and for tourists, the scene before their eyes truly became like that in the movie.
5. Tujia Customs, an Epitome of the Ethnic Group
By the time we reached the Tujia Customs Park it was already evening, and Tujia young men and women stood at the entrance welcoming visitors with rice wine and suona horns. Touring the park, one can feel its flavor as a blend of farming culture, military culture, chieftain culture, architectural culture, and folk customs. Climbing up the currently tallest and largest all-wood stilted building in China—the Nine-Heavens Hereditary Hall—a whole Tujia history unfolds before your eyes, from clothing to beds, to wood carvings, to farming implements, 12 floors in all, very complete. Of course, the building itself is also a miracle. Entirely of wood, without a single iron nail, yet magnificent in momentum. In 2002, together with the Tujia primitive dance "Thousand-Person Maogusi," it was entered into the Guinness World Records.
Coming out of the stilted building, I smelled a burst of crying. At first I didn't know what had happened, but later a Tujia girl said it was a performance of crying before marriage. In the past, Tujia girls would basically cry for half a year before their wedding; the better they cried, the more clever they were shown to be. But for someone like me, still far from marriage, I really couldn't understand the feelings involved. What I found thrilling was the knife performance on the small covered bridge. Accompanied by music, the performer sometimes used three knives to perform like a gymnast on a horizontal bar, sometimes moved like a daughter shuttling at a loom, and sometimes let out a heaven-shaking roar, making the tourists sitting nearby dodge in fright.
Nearby Highlights
"New Liu Hai Chops Wood" staged on Tianmen Mountain
Zhangjiajie's Tianmen Mountain will be different this National Day. A large-scale musical song-and-dance drama, "New Liu Hai Chops Wood," will be staged in the mountain on September 13 and will continue performances during the National Day period. "Liu Hai Chops Wood" is a household-name old folk song, and this time 120 million yuan has been spent to elevate it, which shows its artistic value and also the value of Zhangjiajie's beautiful scenery.
"New Liu Hai Chops Wood" is planned and directed by Mei Shuaiyuan, founder of China's large-scale real-scenery mountain-and-water performances, with Hunan-born music master Tan Dun as music director. It is the world's first musical song-and-dance drama that uses high mountains and fantastic peaks as its stage backdrop, mountain streams and gorges as its performance stage, and has a complete storyline. The show's greatest feature is that it emotionalizes the mountains, waters, and trees, achieving unity between man and nature. It tells the story of the simple and kind mountain villager Liu Hai and the fox fairy Sister Hu, who through much effort defeat the half-immortal Ten Arhats, who want to seize Sister Hu's cultivation pearl, and ultimately live a happy life of men farming and women weaving.
The stage for this show is located in the entire gorge from inside the entrance of the Tianmen Mountain Scenic Area up to the summit of Tianmen Mountain. The main stage is made of 10,000 square meters of fiberglass-reinforced plastic, making it the world's largest panoramic fiberglass stage at present.
Ride the World's Longest Cableway into the Mountain to View Scenery and Pay Respects to the Buddha
Of course, Tianmen Mountain is not only attractive for this musical drama. Its cableway, 7,454 meters long with a height difference of 1,277 meters, is another major feature, and a one-way trip takes half an hour. The main peak of Tianmen Mountain is 1,518.6 meters above sea level, the highest mountain body in Zhangjiajie, and it has both karst landforms and quartz sandstone peak-forest landforms, fully displaying the magic and majestic grandeur of Zhangjiajie's mountains and waters.
It is also the famous mountain with the deepest cultural accumulation in the Zhangjiajie area, with a long-standing religious culture and countless legends of eminent recluses. After getting off the cableway and passing through the thrilling Guigu Plank Road, one can reach Tianmen Mountain Temple. It was first built in the Ming Dynasty and was the Buddhist center of the western Hunan region. On the afternoon of June 8, 2009, the newly renovated Tianmen Mountain Temple welcomed and formally enshrined a Sakyamuni relic. The misty, enchanting mountain scenery outside Tianmen Mountain Temple adds a touch of solemnity and sanctity here.
Some of the above images are from the internet.