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| Traditional dance that accompanies pounding of agra to waterproof the roof of the temple |
On our final morning in Lhasa, we woke up to more of the singing and dancing on the roof of the temple nearby. We went down to have breakfast and there was our local friend and his family at the table. It turned out that they are from Nepal. His family which included his mom and his wife were there. We had a good chat. There was also a nice couple from Canada to chat with. As we were leaving, the Frenchman came in, still as grumpy as ever. In his book, we were responsible for his not being able to take photos because of the presence of that sick local Tibetan. The truth was not relevant to him.
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| On the way to the airport, along Lhasa River |
At 9 am, our previous day driver turned up to pick us up for the airport run. Our guide had moved on. Our driver decided to take a different path from the usual one to avoid having to stop and being held up by the different check points. We were afforded a different view of the various sights including passing through a rural village so we were not complaining at all. Three quarter way through the route, we realised that we had left the brand new charger of our Microsoft Surface Pro 4 behind because we had been charging the laptop and our fitbit right till before we left. It was still plugged into the wall and there was no way for us to go back and get it and still make it to the airport on time.
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| Farmers in the field in front of the Lhasa River |
Because our driver was driving us in a mini-bus, he had to keep to the 65km/hr limit when the taxis were passing us at 80km/hr. It was really frustrating as we had barely an hour to get on our flight. Luckily, checked in was without a hitch. We went to our designated gate. The airline changed gate but the information at the gate where we were did not change. We could not hear the announcements as were were in the gate downstairs. Luckily, the airline did a sweep and found us. They tried to run us to our plane but we could not keep up with running at the attitude in Lhasa so they helped us with our bags. We were told that we were the last one through before the doors closed.
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| Yunan down below |
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| How close can one fly to the mountain tops of the Himalayas |
We had discovered that our flight was not a direct flight to Kunming. There was a stop at Lijang that was not obvious from the ticket. We found out about it only when we were on board the flight. We flew over some seriously pretty scenery .... mountains, dams and hydro electric plants, then landed in the mountainous area in Lijang. The stop was only for some 30 minutes. The waiting room was tiny and the only things offered for sale were souvenirs, Chinese herbs and tea.
We had to change airline at Kunming. That required taking our luggage out of the checked luggage area followed by rechecking in at a different airline. What was interesting was that the flight number on our email from our travel agent was actually non-existent. When we went to check-in, we had to explain to the check in desk. This was when my travelling companion decided to use only English for communicating. She needed to be treated as th foreigner that she really is rather than be mistaken for a Shanghainese or local Chinese. The ground attendant was most helpful to the foreigner is what we have been observing. In fact someone called him and he said to the caller in Mandarin that he had to go as he had to help the foreigner in trouble. They found her a flight but it will arrive around 30 minutes later than what was showing on her email. We hoped that our guide meeting us on the other side would still be waiting at the Zhangjiajie airport, having realised the mistake made by the travel agency. The transit at Kunming was long and boring. We read all the magazines on our tablet. Boarding for the next flight was around dusk.
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| Sunset at the tip of our wings |
We landed in Zhangjiajie a little after 9 pm. Our guide was waiting for us. We were the only guest that he had. How odd. China Highlights had during the whole process said that the tour will not run unless there were at least two guests. We wondered what had happened. Our guide and driver were really nice and took us to our hotel which was located in what looked like a residential area. It was a nice hotel. The lobby had a tea tasting area. The rooms were nice, air-conditioned and quite large with a sunny balcony. It even came with a desktop computer connected to the internet and capable of gaming.
Our guide told us that the name of the town used to be Dayong. We are in the Hunan province. He is indigenous to the area, a Tujia minority. They like to sing and he has a great singing voice. He lived about an hour away. We informed him that we could cope and that he should go home. We would see them in the morning.
30 July, Saturday
We woke up early and packed as this was the evening that we would spend at Wulingyuan. Wullingyuan consists of several parks one of which is Zhangjiajie which is filled with stunning pillars of sandstone covered with subtropical forest. The park is often covered in fog. During such fogs, the pillars looked as if they were floating on the fog. This scenery was what inspired the set of Avatar, the Hollywood movie. Wullingyuan is named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992.
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| Main entrance to Zhangjiajie |
After breakfast of hot noodles which we had at one of the stalls outside our hotel, we were ready. Our guide came and pick us up and we set off in the direction of Wulingyuan. Traffic was rather heavy. During one of those pauses on the road, we changed seat with our guide so that we could ride shortgun with much better views for photography.
It took us slightly more than 2 hours before we arrived at Wulingyuan. We tried to check into our hostel but it was not yet ready. So we left our large luggage with them but carried our camera and computer bag with us for safety. Our driver would not stay the evening in Wulingyuan. Instead he went home to Dayong / Zhangjiajie. Since our guide lives in the town itself, he would not need the driver either.
The temperature had almost doubled as it was almost noon. We walked towards the entrance to Wulingyuan nearest to the hotel. Our guide went to queue and bought us the ticket for the next two days. It was an electronic card and it required our thumbprint registration and return the next day. The entrance fee would allow us free rides on all the buses in the park. These were the only permitted modes of transport within the park other than the cable cars, elevator and boats on the lake. Other than the buses, other modes of transport would require additional tickets.
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| That elevator to the top |
As we climbed towards the elevator station, the view outside was quite pretty. Deep green lake and tall limestone pillars with spots of vegetation along the length or on top.
The queue for the elevator was long. Most of it was underground and it was a little damp. There are two elevators with capacity of around 20-25 each. The elevators was glass on the outside which would afford the rider a nice view. The glass though was not spotless; in fact it was relatively old and rather dirty and smudgy. At the top, was a walk around the rim of a valley filled with hundreds of these limestone pillars. The elevator is the highest in the world - a total of 330m. The ride lasted 2 minutes
Apparently the pillars are not limestone but quartz-sandstone. Their formation were due to ice and plants growing on them causing them to split especially in winters. Some of the rocks on the pillars looked like they were about to fall over. It was very humid and hot even up there at the top of the ridge.
The was a circuit around the rim that one could walk to experience the valley from different perspectives. As we walked, we could hear loud cicadas echoing through the valley. The din was really really loud; much louder than the shouts of the constant stream of vendors of sugary drinks and deserts, fruits and cucumbers, water and other ice drinks and snacks, the constant chatter of all the visitors which to us probably added up to tens of thousands that Saturday afternoon and the people who were hawking photographs at all scenic lookouts. That made us wondered whether the cicadas' songs was piped in rather than natural. The commotion and chaos is so in contrast to the scene before one's eyes - that of a national park of serene looking stone pillars covered with the occasional shrubs.
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| The valley of Zhangjiajie |
Visitors here, most of whom were locals, were not the most environmentally conscious. Plastic wrappers and plastic bottles from bottled drinks could be seen tucked into crevices in the rocks. These presumably washed to the bottom of the valley when there was downpour. One wondered how badly covered in plastic is the bottom of the valley. May be the park paid folks to pick up all that garbage each day. It would be a monumental task.
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| One of the monkeys we encountered up on the rim |
After lunch, we would go another part of the national park, so we got on the bus. On the way we passed the Youth Hostel that was situated inside the park as well as a village. The inhabitants had been here for generations before the place was declared a park so they were allowed to stay and continued with their daily activities. These days, their incomes are supplemented by providing bed and breakfast to visitors.
We got off the bus at this area where there were retail and souvenir stores. The roof of the retail areas were hung with bells for purchase. Each of these had tied to its ringer a red ribbon for wishes. This area was also associated with a famous Tujia, Marshall He Long, one of the 10 Marshalls after China became a communist nation. He would later disagree with Mao and that would result in his being purged from being a Marshall. There was a huge statue honouring Marshall He Long standing there.
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| Me in front of the valley of quartz rock pillars |
The red cedar trees here are very impressive and very tall. These were thought to be extinct until they were rediscovered there. Our walk took us to the upper cable car station from where we would take it down to the valley. Riding the cable car placed us closer to those amazing looking pillars.
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| The quartz rock pillars that inspired "Avatar" |
It was late afternoon so we headed back to the hotel for a rest after buying some fruits and drinks from a store in the town. That evening, our guide had recommended that we attend a local cultural show. He promised that the dances of ethnic minorities in China would be most entertainment and informative. We had agreed to the later of the two shows.
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| Just like Cirque Soliel's acrobats |
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| Wedding ceremony with bride, groom and matchmaker |
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| Walking in knife's edge |
After that show, there was another show outside the theater. This one was of martial arts. Walking on the sharp edges of large knifes that could slice silk, over hot fires, with weights of several blocks of concrete as wide and as tall as a man each were some of the skills exhibited. It was almost midnight before we were back at our hotel. We agreed that the next morning would be a slightly later start at 10 am.
When we got back to the hotel, the lady owner was there. She speaks good English so we stopped to have a chat with her and admire her big dog who was there with her before going upstairs to bed.
31st July, Sunday
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| Just outside our hotel |
Since it was still early, after breakfast, we went for a walk around the town in search of the birds that we thought we would see since we were visiting a national park with dense vegetation. We were disappointed to find only a single bird.
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| Our encounter with wildlife the toad |
Our guide came at 10 am. We loaded our bags into the car. Our driver was going to park his car in the carpark of an exclusive hotel to ensure that no one break into his car to steal our stuff. He would be taking care of guarding our things while the guide and us go up the mountain to Baofeng Lake. We chose to hike up as we did not think it too strenuous. May be it was the challenging hike and may be it was Sunday, but there were fewer people fighting for the same space. We even found a toad on the way up. We hiked up and then down to the lake shore.
We would be cruising around the lake on one of those wooden boats. And we would past a Tujia lady and a Tujia gentleman each standing in their respective huts. The Tujia lady was seeking a man who could debate with her through songs. If he won, then he could take her for his wife and she would do all his biddings. If he loss, he would have to serve her for three years. The Tujia gentleman was the gentleman who lost in his song debate two years ago and still had one more year to serve. Such were the stories told to amuse us. One would have to know a little about Chinese customs and traditions to understand the comedy encapsulated in these stories.
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| Cruising on Baofeng Lake |
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| Sedan chairs |
We also passed a pretty and rather tall waterfall. In the pond nearby, blue damsel flies were seen. From there we hiked up the mountain. There were fewer people today so it was more pleasant than yesterday ... still quite a crowd but not a constant congestion at least at that hour. There were sedan chair bearers offering rides to those who found it challenging to hike up the mountain. The sedan chair were like those from history, with a rattan chair hitched to a bamboo frame carried by two men, one in front and one at the back. A string of them passed by. Some of the riders were elderly folks understandably, but there were young folks and even pre-teen children. Hmmm .... unless it was done for the novelty of the idea, one would think these kids and adults were getting extremely spoilt. A child was seen throwing a tantrum because his parents would not buy him a ride on the sedan chair.
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| Narrow passage at Yangjiajie |
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| The Yangjiajie village from the cable car |
We had been exploring the Yangjiajie area of Wulingyuan. We did not do the entire 16.5km circuit. We went to the cable car station at the top and took the cable car down. It was a long cable car ride, not as long as that of Song Mountains which we did back in 2009 on our previous trip to China, but impressive. It provided an opportunity to examine some of the rock pillars close up.
At the end station of the cable car system was another village that was here before the place was declared a national park. From there, there was a longish walk down to the entrance among tall shaded trees. We encountered another monkey on the way down. At the bottom of the longish stairways was a beautiful garden, complete with a huge lock statue for those who were crazy about locks of love. There was also the statue of the painter / artist that made Zhangjiajie the famous place it is today through his painting of the quartz stone pillars and the fogged valley. We finally saw another few birds in nature.
Our driver came to pick us up for lunch in the town before we set off on the journey back to Dayong / Zhangjiajie. Driver and guide again went to eat by themselves leaving us with a huge meal. So we decided to pack half of it for dinner since it felt wasteful and dinner was at our own expense. Not that we would need a big dinner after that huge lunch.
We were told to expect the traffic to be atrocious. And it was quite bad indeed .... very slow going as soon as we were near the city. It was mid afternoon. In the hazy distance, we could see the peaks of Tianmen mountains - the mountain that had a hole in the middle ... it reminded me of Torghatten of Norway except here it is in a range of mountains and not just a single one. That was where we were visiting the next day.
Our guide told us about a fantastic musical that they play in town at the bottom of that mountain each night. The entire stage was outdoor. The choreographer was the same one that executed the Bejing Olympics opening ceremony. We decided to go to that musical. We were also briefed on the procedure to go up to Tianmen mountain the next day. Our guide and driver dropped us off for a short rest and would come back to pick us up to go to the theater at the foot of Tianshan. The hotel was the same one we were in a day earlier and they gave us the same room again.
We were picked up at the appointed time around 7pm for the musical. The door to the outdoor theater was magnificent, reminiscent of an ancient Chinese castle. Outside, some of the performers put on a pre-show performance while we waited for the show to start. They had English, Korean and Taiwanese subtitles throughout the entire musical. Since we understood Mandarin, sometimes we wish our guide would stop the continuing commentary. He was bored as he had watched this show multiple times with the clients.
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| The entrance to the open air theater |
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| The entire stage with the mountain as the backstage |
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| The village - the prop on stage |
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| The cast taking the final bow |
Stage management was unbelievable. It was a superb performance. The stage and lighting took advantage of the entire canyon.
The arrangement for the next morning was that our guide would go and procure our ticket. That process required queuing. Then the driver would come and fetch us to queue for our spot on the cable car - this has to be done personally. And we would spend the rest of the day up on Tienmen mountain.
1st August, Monday
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| Cable Car with Tianmen mountain in the background |
We went to breakfast at the stall on the street after we woke up. It looked rather sedate and quite safe. After breakfast, we went for a short walk around the neighbourhood where our hotel was. It was not far from the train station and we could see the cable car passing overhead.
Our driver picked us up and we started to queue at 9 am. It was a long and winding queue, snaking through various sections of the building. It looked deceivingly short but as soon as one thought one had cleared, one was in another snaking queue. There were three such queues. It was 11 am before we got into the cable car.
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| Going up Tianmen Mt in a cable car |
Tianmen mountain cable car is reportedly the longest cable car ride up a mountain in the world, a total of around 7.5km. It is definitely the steepest ride, the steepest climb was 37 deg. A fellow rider in our cable car could not bear to keep her eyes open on the final stretch of the climb while we were walking around inside the cable car trying to get a best shot from our camera. It was difficult as the cable car was completely enclosed and there was a lot of reflection from the glass.
The view though was really beautiful ... of the super windy road that we would later ride down in a bus, the canyon where we had watched the musical the evening before, the sheer cliffs that made up Tianmen mountains.
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| View of the glass cantilevered walkway from below |
At the top was this maze of paths around the side of the cliff to explore. There were two glass walkways that were cantilevered off the side of the cliffs, each about 0.6km long. Our guide thought that was what we meant when we asked about the glass bridge spanning the valley. That was opened only recently. But that was not what we were after. We had wanted to experience the fully glass suspension bridge across the valley, not the cantilevered walkway off the side of the cliff. We would later discover that glass bridge had not opened yet even though it was scheduled to open earlier in the year. The opening had been delayed. We would not be able to see it even though that was what we came for. Our tour agent had not told us about the delay nor the fact that the bridge had not yet opened when we were booking the trip in April.
Information about that bridge :
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-37263068
Since we had taken so much time to get to the mountain top, we wanted to spend more time up there even though we had to share the experience with at least 30,000 other tourists that day. There was no crowd control of any kind or number limitation as to how many could end up on the mountain each day. We watched a clueless local threw a plastic packed piece of muffin off the side to see how long it would take to hit the bottom of the valley. We were so appalled that we actually told him the pollution he had created ... he looked at us as if we were stupid to care or aliens ... the concept of care for the environment was totally foreign to him. Employees of the company which run the mountain ... yes, a corporation actually leased the mountain from the Government and constructed all the buildings on it as well as the infrastructure to get on it ... they also employed people to pick up the garbage each day to attempt to improve the visitors' experience. Unbelievable ...
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| Temple where we took shelter from the storm |
There was a Buddhist temple up there. We were not interested in exploring it originally but we saw the weather come in. So we took shelter in the gate house to the temple when the downpour came down hard. It was almost an hour before we were able to escape from that shelter spot. Near the temple were snacks from ancient times - pounded sugar snacks, etc.
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| View from on top after the rain |
Our guide had been well prepared with water and snacks as we were not eating lunch on the mountain but we would have dinner after we came down from the mountain instead. A good thing as we had by then run out of granola bars or dried fruits and nut snacks that we had brought with us from Denmark to tide us over the remaining time of our adventure.
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| The muster area to go back down Tianmen Mt after coming down from the "hole" in the mountain |
From the bottom of that cave opening, we took the bus back into town to the cable car station. The road had 99 bends and only the company buses were allowed on them. We managed to secure the shotgun seat. We were in seventh heaven. It was a very interesting ride down the mountain.
We were met at the railway station by our driver and our next agenda was dinner. It was at this nice Chinese restaurant where they serve hot pot. These restaurants appeared to provide a meal for the drivers and guides who brought their clients to the restaurant. Tried as we did to have our driver and guide eat with us, they refused to break with tradition, leaving us to eat by ourselves the huge meal. It was just so wasteful. We felt so bad about the wastage.
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| Alain Robert daring attempt commemorated |
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| The road with 99 bends going down the mountain from Tianmen Mt Cave |
Our guide checked and confirmed that our flight would definitely not leave before 10 am the next day. The plane for our flight was on the ground at the airport. Airlines had moved all their assets out of the Pearl River delta to the extent possible. Unlike the original plan which would have seen us waking up at 5 am, we would then have a late wake up. The guide in Shenzhen had also been notified. We went to bed a little worried about the situation but knowing that there was nothing we could do but wait.
2nd August, Tuesday
The morning was foggy and hazy when we were driven to the airport. We waved good bye to Zhangjiajie. At the airport, the airline desk permitted check in. Our guide made sure that he had our phone number and we had his so that in the event of non departure, we would be taken care of. During check in, several locals again tried to cut queue as there were several since the airports were all a little messed up due to development in the Pearl River area. The gentlemen said that he would defer to us only because we were foreigners when we called them out. So on their own people, they would just cut queue?
The airport building was very modern. It was also very stark. No all the space were utilised. A lot of empty space were condoned off or the doors to areas that had been partitioned off were shut. We only saw the emptiness behind by sheer coincidence. There was a cooked food store and a snack store. That was all. We all waited in this cavernous hall. At one point, it looked promising as we watch the pilot and crew approached the plane, but that was only for a commentary for a TV channel presumably as they moved away after that and re-chocked the wheels of the plane.
They announced delays of an hour and a half. We were all requested to turn up at the collection point where they distributed cans of sweet peanut soup and some soy drink as refreshment. They apologised. As far as we could tell, Typhoon Tida had already made landfall and the strength of the winds were decreasing but the storm was moving further inland. The question was whether the wind speed or the strength of the storm would decrease sufficiently for our flight to fly. We were flying China Southern on that leg of the flight, an airline with good reputation and safety record. We felt a little better.
The delay from 10am went to 10.30 am to 11 am to 12pm and finally to 2pm. If there had been further delay, we would not make the flight from Hongkong to Brisbane. Luckily, that time, they called for us to board the flight. Having boarded the flight, we were apprehensive as to how turbulent the flight was going to be. It was not as turbulent as we anticipated it to be although the landing in Shenzhen was a little hairy.
At Shenzhen airport, there were no crowds. The guide was there to meet with us and to rush us over to Port Luohu. He informed that out of three that he was scheduled to fetch that day, we were the only one that made it through the airport. All his other clients had been held up. We had been lucky. Our driver loaded our luggage into the van and off we went towards the port. Traffic was relatively light and the streets did not look too worse for wear. Our guide explained that the storm had hit further west so the city of Shenzhen had been spared. Traffic was unusual as the day had been declared a public holiday both in Shenzhen and Hongkong in preparation for the storm. On the way to the Port, he briefed us on our transport options to the Hongkong International Airport. If we opted for our original option of using the train, it would at least 2 hrs between Port Luohu and the airport barring any train delays. We could always take a taxi directly from one stop after Port Luohu to the airport for around 400HK$. The payment would have to be in cash though as taxis in Hongkong do not take credit cards. We did not remember whether they did or otherwise but that last piece of information sounded a little strange for an international city like Hongkong.
It took only 45 minutes to get to the Port, around 15 minutes less than anticipated. Crossing over to Hongkong through the checkpoints was also really fast due to the public holiday related to the typhoon. On the other side, we boarded the train and went one station before getting out, going to the ATM to withdraw the required cash. We jumped into the first taxi that would take us, a red colour taxi.
The taxi driver had three mobile phones stuck on to a ruler like device which sat behind his steering wheel. He had a 4th on speaker. He was fiddling with music, appeared to be trading shares, and chatting with friends as he drove 110km/hr down an 80kmh highway to the airport. We would have told him to drop us off if we thought that we could get a better option or that we would be even able to find another taxi that would get us to the airport on time. Instead, we hung on for dear life and hoped and prayed that we would get to the airport alive. The only thing on our side was that there was hardly any traffic on the roads for the same reason as at Shenzhen. Thankfully, the ordeal only lasted 45 minutes.
When we arrived at the airport, the taxi driver charged us 480HK$, 40HK$ for each of our bags according to him. Luckily we had some RMB that we had converted into HK$ and some HK$ from previous travel that allowed us to pay in full in cash. Glad to be at the airport and alive, we were 30 minutes too early to check in. The airport was extremely crowded as many of the passengers from the cancelled flights were literally camping there. The food courts were crowded as was any open space where passengers were just sitting sprawled on the floor.
Chep Lap Kok International airport was as usual cutting edge, with retail stores of all variety to cater to those who would like to shop, snack shops and souvenir shops, food court, and even push carts after customs and immigration which allow one to either watched movies from your personal devices on larger screens or stream in options from these carts itself. We had a little snack. Then we got on our flight bound for Sydney. Our seat mate a young teenager who had been home school by a pastor in Hongkong who was going to go to school in Sydney and would be boarded with a friend of her father. My travelling companion tried to give her a little friendly advise about taking full advantage of her experience in Australia through trying to integrate with the local community rather than merely sticking with those who were like her. As the plane took off, it lost height momentarily in mid climb which caused her to scream and grab my travelling companion's hands. My travelling companion advised her young flight companion not to worry but consoled her.
3rd August, Wednesday
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| Flying into Sydney |
Our connecting flight was on time and we did not have long to wait at all. In next to no time, we were back in Brisbane where Roy had parked our car at the domestic terminal. He had texted us to tell us where to find it. We found our car, unlocked it with our keys and drove back to our apartment. We were finally home. And we had missed most of the Australian winter. This was one year that we had gone from summer in the southern hemisphere to summer in the northern hemisphere, the way we had dreamed as the ideal way to spend a year. 2016 had been a challenging year professionally but in terms of travels, it had been a great year thus far ..... we wondered what our next adventure the rest of this year could be.
Footnotes : The cost of travelling in China had increased immensely since 2009. Back then we had spent only US$2500+ to travel almost two weeks on personal tours from Xian to Kashgar, the entire Chinese portion of the Silk Road. We had not covered as much this trip and it had cost us closer to US$4000. Back then, it was crowded at tourist spots but never as absolutely choked to the gills as we experienced this trip. Now it was possible to see nature when visiting a national park but not possible to experience nature. Except for when we were in Tibet, most experiences anywhere were akin to attending a musical or entertainment at an amusement park.
In Tibet, there was a police checkpoint every few street corners. Whilst walking around we did not feel unsafe; the feeling was that one was under constant surveillance.
