WHERE TO STAY: Glass Cube Guesthouse (a MUST)
MUST DO: Zhang Jia Jie National Park – especially the famous Avatar Mountains, and get in a hike from the bottom if you have an extra day!
WHAT’S WORTH MISSING: Tian Men Shan: 天门山
A couple of weekends ago, my friends and I traveled to the city of Zhang Jia Jie (张家界) for one of the most beautiful trips of our lives. The occasion for travel was a long weekend: Thursday, April 5 was the Qing Ming Festival (清明节), otherwise known as Tomb Sweeping Day. During this holiday, people travel home to pay respects to their ancestors and clean graves, as the name implies.
The trip from Shanghai to Zhang Jia Jie was just a quick two hour flight. My first domestic plane ride came with surprises in itself. From the airport gate, we boarded a shuttle bus to get to the plane. As soon as the bus doors opened, everyone sprinted to the plane stairway to get on first. There was pushing, shoving, and screaming, but eventually, we made it on the plane. We were finally off to Zhangjiajie!
An unexpected highlight of the trip was the bed and breakfast we stayed at, called the Glass Cube Guesthouse. The small, quaint property was tucked behind the main road, accessible only by a hike up a steep set of stairs. The guesthouse was run by a lovely local family.During our stay, they cooked us amazing Chinese breakfasts (the best fried rice I have ever eaten) and dinners, welcomed us home each day with orange slices, and chatted with us around the fire at night. The family had three children who were always eager to play with us and two dogs—Hui Hui and Wan Cai—who were the object of all of our snuggles and attention.
DAY ONE: THE AVATAR MOUNTAINS
The main draw of Zhangjiajie is the Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park, commonly known as “The Avatar Mountains” because of its role in inspiring the setting of the Avatar movie. We spent our first two days exploring the Avatar Mountains—and they were nothing short of breathtaking.
On our first day, the six of us who had traveled together were joined by three Italians we had met at our guesthouse that morning. Collectively, we decided to see the main attraction—the Avatar Mountains—first. To get to the popular viewing spots for the Avatar Mountains, we had to take a combination of walking paths, buses, and hanging cable cars (gondolas). Usually, I am not a big gondola fan; while I have no trouble on an upside roller coaster moving at high speeds, what makes me uneasy is hanging so far above the ground while moving SO slowly. However, I found myself enjoying the gondola rides. The cable cars traveled up through mountains—it felt like we were floating through the greenery and the foggy mist. When we finally reached the viewing point, we had to maneuver our way around large groups of people and squeeze our way to the front. Once we reached the front and got our first look at at the Avatar Mountains, gasps of awe and soft “wows” resounded among our group.
For the next hour so, we walked from lookout point to lookout point (with names such as Enchanting Platform 迷魂台), taking in each view of the Avatar Mountains as if it was our first. We also walked across a natural bridge (called First Natural Bridge Under Heaven 天下第一桥) , which had railings decorated with bright ribbons and inscribed locks. As the day reached noon, the Avatar Mountain viewpoints began to get very crowded, so we decided to move on to some other features of the park.
We took another cable car up, this time to a higher point on the mountains. This viewpoint was much quieter and we walked among the fog as we looked out among the rocky terrain.
We also rode a glass elevator (百龙天梯) from the top of one of the mountains down to the bottom. Unfortunately, a huge group of people was stuffed into the elevator and our group was at the back, without a view as we descended. Although the elevator ride itself was disappointing, we exited into a square surrounded by the Avatar peaks rising up around us. We had gone from peak level looking across at the mountains to ground level looking up at the mountains stretching up above us.
Near the end of the day, we began a descent to a new viewpoint. However, after about fifteen minutes of walking down sets of stairs, we realized we were at the beginning of the Ten Mile Trail and needed to turn back. Tired, we turned around only to look at the hundreds of stairs we had just descended. But with a few breaks and some motivation, we made it back up the steps and caught the last cable car down before heading back to the guesthouse for the night.
DAY TWO: ENDLESS STAIRS
The next day, we decided to explore the park in a different way. We started at the park entrance and instead of getting on a bus to drive us up to a viewpoint, we decided to hike up. Unaware of what we were in store for, we began walking up a steep flight of stairs–only to come to the bottom of another set of stairs, and so forth. Ten minutes in, we stopped to take a “stretch break.” However, we continued forward, undeterred. After about an hour of making our way up hundreds of stairs, we came to the viewing point on the side of a mountain. The view different from that of the day before, but was spectacular in its own right.
We continued on up more flights of stairs until we reached the next view point—we walked around the back of a large rock that fed out into a sunny patch, perfect for our snack break. We relaxed in the sunlight, admiring the view and munching on muffins, granola bars, and apples. An upside down rainbow even made an appearance!
Following our extended break, we continued forward, determined to get to the top of the mountain. We hiked for about an hour and a half, making our way through paths alongside forests, passing by pockets of beautiful views, and finally up the last few sets of steep stairs. Sprinting up the last few steps, we turned to take in the view we had hiked up to—it did not disappoint. The final point was of the most beautiful views of the weekend, the feelings of awe and exhilaration that come only with finally reaching a peak. The three hour hike up the hundreds of stairs was completely worth it.
We stopped for a quick lunch of fresh wonton soup at the top, then proceeded to walk an easy loop around the top of the mountain. Each viewpoint was just as amazing as the last. We would “woah” and “wow,” walk fifteen feet to the next viewpoint, and then “woah” and “wow” all over again. Nothing has amazed so many times over and over (and over) again as the Zhang Jia Jie National Park did.
DAY THREE: TIAN MEN SHAN
For our final day, we decided to visit Tian Men Shan (天门山) for the day before we had to catch our flight back to Shanghai. Tian Men Shan boasts the world’s largest cable car ride; the ride up to the mountain took about twenty minutes. The views were spectacular (though we all agreed not quite on par with the Zhang Jia Jie National Park), but the cable car ride for some reason left us all feeling a bit nauseous.
We spent the next few hours walking around Tian Men Shan, which we noticed was a lot more commercialized than the Zhang Jia Jie National Park. In addition to the cable car, Tian Men Shan included a few other “activities” including walking on a glass floor that hung off the side of part of the mountain and riding escalators down to the Tian Men Shan Arch. In total, we took six very long escalators down. From the arch, we had to descend a very steep and long staircase. The steps were very small–my women’s size 7 foot was larger than the width of the steps. Upon reaching the end of a steep portion within the whole set, I thought we had reached a flat portion to break up the steps, but they were in fact, just less steep stairs. To get back down to the park entrance/exit, we had to ride two buses down windy roads–the buses were going very fast for buses on a normal road, let alone buses driving around one sharp hairpin turn after another. Each time two buses approached one another, they honked as if to notify one another, but neither vehicle slowed down.
To cap off our trip, we stumbled upon a small restaurant near Tian Men Shan, where we stuffed ourselves with sizzling beef and black bean sauce rice plates.
If you travel to Shanghai, you MUST take a few days of your schedule to travel to Zhang Jia Jie. NATURE IS AMAZING! My trip to Zhang Jia Jie not only allowed me to see the beauty of nature, but to feel and truly appreciate how special and spectacular Earth is. Words and pictures do not come close to doing Zhang Jia Jie justice. Put it on your bucket list.
WHO (JULIA) WHAT WHERE WHEN 