Yurt Life: National Day 2017

View from the train window

After my night in the campsite and another night in the hotel, I jumped on a train to ZhangYe. It was an incredibly boring train journey with absolutely nothing to look out so I lay on my bunk and read my book, 8 hours later I arrived.

I had booked into a "luxury yurt" as part of a campsite next to the Rainbow Mountains Park. I pretty much only booked out of intrigue of what a luxury yurt was and enjoyment of saying the word yurt. I arrived and was shown around. There were about 40 yurts and a restaurant and that was it! Finding the right one was tricky and finding it again in the dark after going to the bathroom was trickier still. I lost count of how any times people tried to get into mine.

The yurt itself was indeed luxurious, nicer by far than the hotel I had just stayed in. Everything was clean and freshly painted. I was very impressed.

The campsite was about 400 meters from one of the gates to the DanXia Geological Park which made for a very easy commute. I walked down, paid for the tickets and was directed to the bus station.

The park has a network of jump on jump off buses that go just about everywhere. For the most park, I didn't have to wait long and the buses weren't too busy. Although it wasn't far between the viewing platforms walking between them wasn't allowed.

All in all there are 9 different viewing areas of varying degrees of impressiveness. Most involved a huge amount of stairs to a wooden walkway which was usually covered in people chilling out and generally being in the way.

I had read reviews online of people being disappointed in the park and the colours of the mountains. They  weren't the vibrant blues and reds that I had seen on google but they were absolutely impressive!

The park is huge but as a visitor there aren't loads of different areas that you can go and get lost in or wander off to get away from people. Regardless, I had a great time and think it was completely worth visiting.