Tom's visit 2015 Part 5: TianMen Mountain (moved from old blog)

 The Return of the Brother: TianMen Mountain

TianMen Mountain (Heaven's gate) was the highlight of the trip for me. Although ZhangJiaJie is beautiful I still think I liked TianMen better. The scenery is completely different and its more about the platform walk and the eventual steps that combined to make this mountain my favourite. 
By now we are on our 4th day of 6 am alarms and our third of all day walking, needless to say the swearing was at an all time high with the sounding of the alarm. Luckily for us, it was pouring down when we woke up. It took us all of about ten seconds to decide mountain climbing in this weather was a really stupid idea and we immediately went back to sleep. The weather cleared up around 9 am so we went about the horrid task of getting up and heading to the cable car station. Little did we know that Rocky, the amazing man that he is, knew we were going to TianMen and booked us tickets online the night before to save us some money. 


don't drop the hammer!

The cable car claims to be the longest in the world, something I have heard in China before, but at over 7 km it may well be. (I googled the worlds longest cable car and still cant say for certain, all I can say is it is in the top 5.) The cable car starts on the far side of the city to the mountain (city in this case meaning train and bus station plus a road of restaurants and shops) and then goes up to the top very quickly. At a whopping 30 minutes we had plenty of time to sit and watch the looming mountain draw closer and closer. We were also lucky in that the cable car goes over the 99 bend road. We drove back down this road later on but we didn't count the bends, we were too busy clinging to the seat in front as Evil Kenevil drove us to the half way cable car point. 

glass walkway, (google image) it was much busier 
when we were there.

Once at the top there is a beautiful walkway clinging to the side of the cliff that circles the whole top of the mountain. Again google can into play as i was intrigued as to how that pathway was constructed. The pictures I found made my stomach churn so I added them here to make your too. The pathway is open to the elements and has only a waist high handrail to stop you plummeting the 1400 meters to the rocky base of the mountain. We were lucky in that the path in general was not too crowded as we could walk at a decent pace without having to push or be pushed. We encountered crowds just before the glass walkway (my main reason for coming) when buying the 5RMB ticket to get on to the path. Here there was lots of pushing, shouting and general chaos all being ignored by the guy whose job it was to keep order. 
Unfortunately the clouds had rolled in again and we couldn't see the bottom when on the path, which is probably just as well as I think Tom might have had a heart attack. Most of the people on the path were screaming and clinging to each other, so we shuffled off fairly quickly and carried on round the path. The path was pretty much the only route we could take so getting lost wasn't much of an issue, there were only a few times when it split and here our little map was more use than any of the signs. About a two hour walk later we got to the top of the escalators, which is the start of the last part of the mountain tour. The escalators were split into 6 smaller ones, each about 100 meters in length, all underground. We had no idea where we were going or how much further we had to travel, every time we thought we were getting close another escalator appeared. 

journey to the center.....

Eventually we were spat out of the earth at the base of the large hole in the mountain, or the gate/door as it is known. I had read stories of the Russian Air force flying through the door as well as the Squirrel wing suit man (name unknown sorry) and having been there I am more convinced than ever that they are insane. Sure its a fairly large hole in a mountain but I still would not even think of flying through it!


.....of the earth

 The base of the door is at the top of the 999 steps (apparently this particular mountain likes 9s) which thankfully we did not have to walk up. At this point in the trip I think both of us would have died or at least our legs would have. the view of the surrounding area from the top was impressive, but the main attraction was the mountain itself. standing in the middle was actually not a great vantage point so we trooped down the steps (without falling) and got much better pictures from the bottom looking up. 

base of the steps

At the base of the steps and the top of the 99 bend road is a little seating area with some terrible food. We sat and ate for a bit then boarded the bus. As i mentioned earlier, our journey on the bendy road was not at all comfortable or enjoyable and luckily was not the whole way back. they drop you off at the half way point of the cable car and that takes you back to the start. 
TianMen held one of the top spots on my bucket list so I am thrilled to have finally made it. It was the highlight of my trip, even considering ZhangJiaJie and YangShuo, both beautiful but just different. I cannot recommend it enough!


We had a slight train ticket mishap in that we couldn't get any, so a flight was booked and we swapped our 18 hour train for a 2 hour
plane. Next stop HangZhou

we made it!

Tom's visit 2015 part 4: ZhangJiaJie (moved from old blog)

The Return of the Brother: ZhangJiaJie

ZhangJiaJie or the main event. 

These few days were the reason and ultimate destination of our trip, everything else was a bonus or close enough that it wouldn't effect our coming here. Many places in China, in my experience have claimed to be the inspiration for various things. I think even YangShuo claimed to be the Avatar Mountains at one point but having been here and seen the movie, I think this one is pretty undeniable, just look at the evidence.

 We arrived into ZhangJiaJie station and the owner of the hotel we were staying in met us and walked us the 5 minutes to the hotel. Although we found it on hostelworld.com it really was a beautiful hotel complete with the most amazing shower in the world, of course our perspectives could have been altered by our constant need for a decent shower after walking through the park. 

The owner, Rocky, had been a tour guide in the park for 20+ years and wasted no time in giving us a fantastic route for our first day in ZhangJiaJie. The park is about a 45 minute drive from the bus station, which is conveniently next to the train station. Hundreds of buses daily shuttle between the park entrance and the station so it was just a case of flagging one down and  jumping on.

 

Every day, we were getting up at 6am with aim of being deep into the belly of the park by the time the crowds really started getting going. again a perfect plan from Rocky but never fun, there was a fair amount of cursing in our room when the alarm was going off, by the fourth day especially. 




monkeys in the background

Once at the bottom it was a further 6km walk along the river to the central point from where we could pick up a bus to the entrance/exit. The river trail began at a point where all the wild monkeys seemed to hang out. there were "please don't feed the monkeys" signs everywhere but of course everyone was causing the monkeys to fight and grab at people. Tom and I stood and watched the chaos for a bit before making our way along further the river. The trail was easy walking and well maintained and zigzagging through the forest it was a nice cool alternative to the exposed top trail. We were pretty much the only foreigners in the park so sometimes we were as much as attraction as the scenery itself. The whole park made me expect to see dinosaurs crashing about in front of as as it looked so much like the scenery from Jurassic Park. It really was beautiful and surprisingly not too crowded, apparently getting up at the crack of dawn was a good idea. 

The park area is huge so our maps and scribbled noted were invaluable. Our first day involved a cable car up to the top of one of the main peak areas, walking the 2 hour and roughly 10km route around the top and then walking down the 3300 steps (according to park information, we didn't count them) to the base of the mountain. The trail around the top was mostly easy to follow, occasionally the signs would give conflicting advice but our map was incredibly accurate. Considering Rocky had drawn and designed it himself before getting them printed to give out, they were flawless. He must have walked the routes hundreds of times to ensure such accuracy and description. The view points around the top were over looking part of the park with names like, Fairy Cave, Visitor from Space, Heavenly pillar and Enchanting rock. Most were fairly well named but some required a serious amount of imagination. The whole upper trail took about 2 hours and by this point we were already completely shattered. The heat was crippling so we were just dripping by the time we can to walking down the steps. We could have taken the cable car back down but Rocky said it was just as quick to walk. at one point the cable car was going directly over head and we were getting some very strange looks from the people in the cars. 

We left the park for home at about 4pm, so nearly 9 hours walking about, completely shattered and in desperate need of a shower (this is maybe why we loved our room so much). We got back to the hotel and handed in some laundry that needed doing. We were a little embarrassed to be handing in what we did and offered to load the machine ourselves, Rocky simply shrugged, ignored the bio hazard signs and bravely volunteered his wife, who I am sure was not so happy, for the job. That pair deserve medals! 


The second day was another 6am job but this time being sore from the day before caused an even greater barrage of  swearing when the alarm went off. This time we had a different route that started with a glass elevator. The second day was much busier and so the park itself seemed to be more stressful an irritating. Scenery wise it was more of the same and having seen it all yesterday, we were getting to know what to expect. One day in the park is not enough whereas two seems to be too much. We were done with the Avatar mountains when we completed our second day. Again back to the hotel and a nice long shower. 
Our third day was TianMen Mountain (Heaven's Gate Mountain) which deserves its own post.

Tom's visit 2015 part 3: FengHuang (moved from old blog)

 

The Return of the Brother: FengHuang

As was to be expected, we hit a few road blocks on the way to FengHuang from YangShuo. First of all we had a terrible train journey to ChangSha, some genius had given a kid an iPad and she proceeded to play that irritating song from Frozen for over 2 hours. At first it was a little funny, then other people on the train started joining in (at which point I plugged into my phone and watched a movie) then more people joined in (at this point Tom is growling into his book) then a ticket collector came along and told the kid to turn it down which the kid ignored. 

We got off the train after 4 hours of torture stressed out and very grumpy. I googled a hostel in ChangSha and we went and checked in, the thought of another 4 hours on a train nearly killed us. 

ChangSha is a big city with nothing going on. Even google says so. We found a ticket office and bought tickets for the next morning to JiShou from where we could catch the bus to FengHuang. 

After our first train journey, the second one went incredibly smoothly. We had somehow booked beds for a daytime journey so nearly had the carriage to ourselves. Luxury. We arrived into JiShou and found the bus to FengHuang without issues. 45 minutes later we were there. 
The hostel had warned us that they were difficult to find, this would later turn out to be a massive understatement. We managed to get to one of the entrances of the city and gave up and called them. My Chinese being OK but my FengHuang knowledge being non existent we recruited two very bored looking shop assistants to help us out. They talked to the hostel and sorted us out with a meeting point, from where the hostel staff came and picked us up. 
After checking in and showering, we went for a walk to see what was going on. FengHuang is an ancient city built along a river so many of the building hang over the water and the place is full of very impressive and beautiful bridges. 

During the day it is a beautiful place with a few too many bongo drum shops and beef jerky salesmen, but at night the whole city is transformed into some kind of bar and club Disney land like nightmare. All of the bars were blasting terrible club music in competition with their neighbour, who was blasting a slightly different song. Lights flashed everywhere and lazers shot in all directions. Every bar had staff outside trying to bully you into their bar but looking inside them nearly every bar was absolutely deserted. We got tired of the bar bullies fairly quickly and so went back to the room for an early night, we would try again in the morning. 

Overnight we had months worth of rain in only a few hours. Our brilliant plan of getting up and continuing with daytime exploration was looking less and less likely. About 8 o'clock the rain stopped so we blasted out to see as much as we could. We hadn't really appreciated how much rain there had been until we got to the river and many of the shorted bridges had been submerged. Also the dark green of the river from the day before was now a brilliant brown littered with debris from further upstream. It was a no go on the boat trip so instead we walked the river banks. In terms of the view from the bank vs the boat it likely doesn't change much but boats are always fun and different. 

We walked as far as the city extended in one direction and then turned back to walk the walls. On our way we found a partially completed bridge that had not been expecting the sudden deluge of water. We spent only a few hours in FengHuang wandering about as there really wasn't too much to see, I have heard of other water towns that are similar but haven't been discovered by the tourists yet. These i would certainly recommend investigating as just sheer number of people made FengHuang a stressful place to visit, even if only for a night. 

Our next stop was ZhangJiaJie, or the Avatar mountains. This was the main attraction of this trip and what we had been looking forward to for weeks. 

Tom's visit 2015 part 2 : Yangshuo (moved from old blog)

 The Return of the Brother: YangShuo

A quick two hour flight from Shanghai is the incredible scenery of Yangshuo. Months ago, when I was planning our holiday I spent hours google-ing, 'Top places in China' and 'where to visit in China' almost all of the lists featured YangShuo or the nearby city of Guilin and, having now been there I have to say I agree. The landscape of YangShuo is similar to some others I have found during some of my other trips to GuiZhou (XinYi) or to Northern Vietnam (MaiChao) but still it is beautiful and amazing and I enjoyed it all the same. Tom continued his constant wow-ing but also, for variety, added "Jesus, just Jesus" by this point I was considering turning him into a drinking game. 

He was right of course, every corner revealed something slightly more spectacular that the one before, making it almost impossible to pick a favourite. We landed a little later than planned due to taking off later than planned, for what reason I have no idea, but our taxi driver had waited for us, which was lucky as the buses had all stopped. We were quickly checked in and tucked up in bed in a cosy 8 bed dorm on the fifth floor. 

By now the May Day holiday was in full swing and the tourist magnet of YangShuo was rammed with people, so we decided to go in the opposite direction and hired bikes at the crippling price of 20RMB (£2) for the day. 

We were loaned a very confusing and misleading map but it didn't really matter too much, there are only 2 main roads in and out so if its not one road, try the other. First we tried following the river upstream which worked for a while, right up until the point when the road and the river parted company and began heading in different directions. So we performed an about turn and tried the other road. Eventually we found the YiLong stream which seems to have become the go-to place for bamboo rafting. 

Hundreds of individual rafts floated past in a steady block of boats and people making us very grateful for our decision to get bikes instead. We sat on the side of the road and chilled in the sun for a bit before heading back to the hostel for an early-ish night. The hostel, as it turned out had a fantastic social courtyard area with an endless supply of cold beer, so several of our plans for an early night failed. Including this one!

Tom's wedding

Our second day had been put side for a day trip to the nearby Dragon Backbone (longji) rice terraces. We had looked into getting there on our own but it really isn't possible as a solo traveller in a day, and we were on a fairly tight time limit so taking longer wasn't an option. So we did the unthinkable and booked onto a tour! The tour itself wasn't too bad but did involve a lot of driving and a minority show from the Yao people. Tom was lucky enough to get pulled up on stage and get married to a complete stranger, all before having to sing in front of everyone. The whole show was designed around making a fool out of the men as in this particular group of people, WOMEN RULE! They do all of the work in the fields and the men raise the kids and do the cooking and cleaning, they get to pick/reject any man who dares to propose marriage with the option of pushing them out of bedroom windows if they don't get the point straight away. The Yao minority is famous in China for the womens hair. After 18 the never cut it and they wash their hair in rice starch water which they say is what keeps their hair black and why it never goes grey. 

Getting to the terraces is as easy as jumping in a cable car, long gone are the days of hiking to the top of the valley, in fact the pathway has been blocked off so that option no longer exists. Infuriatingly rain clouds had rolled in and we were going up the side of the valley in a cloud so thick we could just about see the car in front. It made for some very spooky pictures though. Once at the top we had an hour before needed to get back to the bus. 30 minutes of staring at cloud and suddenly everything cleared up. Out of nowhere hundreds of meters of terraces appeared before us where only a few minuted before had been a solid wall of cloud. At the top of the valley at the 'viewing area' there is literally a trail leading to a seating area with a small shop/restaurant. We were initially shocked with our being told we only had an hour before we needed to head back to the bus but actually it was plenty of time. There are no other paths or areas that you can explore, literally 40 meters of a pathway and thats it.  A couple thousand photos later we jumped back into the cable car and began our journey back to YangShuo. 

Our final day was the long awaited bamboo boat cruise. It turns out bamboo raft actually meant bamboo colour painted drain pipes with a motor but it was impressive none the less. The Li River bamboo raft cruise starts at the scene on the 20RMB notes and goes down stream for about 45 minutes stopping every now and again for photo oppertunities, some of which we bought. Our driver/Captain was a very shouty and angrry man until we bought some pictures and he cheered up considerably, we later realised he got about half of the price of the picture. For 20RMB we got taken further down the river and dropped off at a much more conveinent spot. I would say it was worth it. 
Our next stop is FengHuang Ancient city, near to ZhangJiaJie moutains. This is where our trip got a little more complicated as we could only book a train half way to ChangSha, the rest of the trip is a see what happens deal. Worst case; we stay in ChangSha a night and carry on to FengHuang in the morning. r

Tom's visit 2015 Part 1 Shanghai (moved from old blog)

 The Return of the Brother: ShangHai

As most of you no doubt know Tom was recently out here for a visit/holiday, we had 19 days of stomping about China fitting in as much as we possibly could. Looking back, I think we did very well considering how much time he was here. 

This year, we decided to meet in Shanghai. We went to Beijing last year and, although we both love Beijing, the further travel options are limited. I had already been to Shanghai as so knew a very nice hostel and the basics of the subway system, which definitely made things easier. 

The hostel is fantastic; (if anyone is interested Rock and Wood Hostel) we had  booked a private room so we could get plenty of sleep and still managed to meet people in the hostel bar, plus we didn't have to worry about keeping our stuff in order, which is always a plus. 

Our first few days were fairly chilled out and relaxed, as we knew the middle travelling part of the holiday was going to be tiring and hectic. We spent the weekend wandering about the interesting and more spectacular parts of the city making sure to find time to visit some of the attractions. We probably managed to see and do more the first three days of this years holiday than we managed in the whole of last years two weeks. Of course we were prepared for trouble! I arrived with 4 boxes of stomach tablets and Tom a further 6, between us we could have solved the problems of a vindaloo addicted elephant with a delicate constitution. 

We managed to do most of the shanghai Top 10 tourist spots and added in several of our own. Walking along The Bund is always a good few hours of people watching followed by a stroll along NanJing Road, one of the world largest pedestrianised shopping streets.  We also went up the World Finance Center, which boasts the Guinness books of Records, “Highest Observation platform” at a stomach churning 497 meters. 

It was here that we discovered that Tom was not so happy with heights. I have been up the tower before but I was unlucky to have had bad weather that day, this time it was clear and sunny so the view was incredible. Looking down on the other skyscrapers of the Shanghai skyline is really something. Tom developed a habit of muttering "wow, just wow" every time we saw something famous or impressive. 

As I am sure you can imagine, this was said  ALOT especially in the next few places we visited. 

We also booked to see a troop of local acrobats, an experience which ranged from "wow" to "I can't look any more". This was my third time seeing an acrobat show, the other two being in Beijing, and I still don't think I have seen the same act twice. 
 

Actually, the only temple we visited was in Shanghai. We visited JinAn Temple, which is beautiful but has a very strange feel to it. The temple itself could have been built yesterday and it is in the middle of a busy shopping and market street. I wouldn't have been too surprised if someone had told me one day it fell from the sky and Shanghai decided to keep it where it was. 

We were in Shanghai during the May Day holiday so the central courtyard was full of people burning candles and praying whereas the rest of the temple was almost deserted. Made for a very strange almosphere but very interesting regardless.Otherwise, our first few days were more of a 'where do I want to go back to' list as our trip would be ending back there in a couple of weeks time. We went and explored shopping areas and souvenir streets but were very restrained in not buying anything. Anything bought at this point in the holiday would have to be carried round with us or left in a bag behind a desk. 
We booked a flight to GuiLin (24 hour train journey I think NOT) for our third day so it was only a quick introduction to ShangHai. We will be back!

Spring Festival 2015 JiuZhaiGou (moved from old blog)

 Sun and snow in JiuZhaiGou

 

Chocolate box advert?

 After the stupidly long bus journey, the whole room snuggled down for a pathetically early night, the plan being to get up early and get to the park before it opened in an effort to avoid the crowds. as it turned out we needn't have bothered as it had snowed over night and this seemed to keep the crowds away leaving the park almost deserted. 
The park is spread over two valleys that join to make a Y shape, we had been given maps from the hostel but they were hugely misleading. what looked fairly close on the map was a minimum of a 4km walk, so the longer looking gaps were generally more than 30km.  On the first morning my plan was to get the bus as far as i could and then walk back to the start. After a 35 minute bus journey I figured this wasn't completely doable and instead walked only half. The was a hop on hop off bus service that ran about the park that proved to be amazing. Most of the Chinese tourists were getting off, taking pictures then getting on again and blasting to the next park of the park. In between the scenic spots of interest (their wording not mine) there were almost no people and some incredible little unknown parts. The paths wound round the other side of lakes and rivers and, on my first day at least, were covered in snow. I had Walking in a Winter Wonderland going round and round in my head for days after my trip.

 The park is incredible! We would walk a little, be blown away by the scenery, say something along the lines of "how can this get any better" and then, as if to show us up, it would get more impressive. 
The water is completely clear and a fantastic bright blue or green colour, which with the snow and the mountains made for some beautiful scenery. Walking thought the park was a good idea as I kept finding waterfalls and streams that weren't marked on the map so they were completely deserted and quiet. 
It is one of the most amazing places I have been and am so glad I finally made it. 

Spring Festival 2015 JiuZhaiGou (moved from old blog)

 The Journey to JiuZhaiGou

After finishing work nearly a month ago I have been ready to leave Kunming for a  few days. 

Annoyingly I couldn't leave the city while my new VISA was being processed so as soon as I got my passport back I was booking flights to somewhere, anywhere. So I consulted my "to go to list" and picked a place that was do-able in a  week. 

I picked JiuZhaiGou in Northern SiSchuan, one of China's original UNESCO heritage sites and one of the top 10 places to visit. I flew to ChengDu, a nice 1 hour 10 minute flight, and then booked a bus to JiuZhaiGou, a not so nice 10 hour bus journey. 

I had a few days to kill in ChengDu before my whole day on a bus, so I stocked up on audio books and bus food and headed out. 
We were crammed onto a medium sized bus and started off on an epic journey into the mountains. 

The road has recently been resurfaced so it wasn't bumpy but swingy would be an understatement. The road snaked round the bottom of gorges, along the side of the river and through 10km long tunnels and all the time I was getting more and more impressed by the scenery. I managed to take over 40 photographs just on the journey. 

Once in JiuZhaiGou town, if a string of hotels and restaurants can be called a town, I set off to find the hostel from hostelworld.com. I walked into a beautiful hotel lobby and was fairly certain I had messed up and booked the wrong place. However, the people at reception had me details and I was pointed to the fifth floor. 

The carpet stopped on the fourth floor and the fifth turned out to be the roof and the room I was pointed to, a shed/garage looking thing on the roof. The room had concrete floors and no heating so the electric blankets were just the best thing ever! The bathrooms were across the roof and we had to clamber over pipes and cables to get to some incredible showers, then again after ten hours on a hot and crowded bus any kind of shower would have been amazing. There were six of us in the room and we were all shattered having all just done the epic journey so we were tucked up in bed with a beer by about nine in the evening. Tomorrow to the park!