Day 3: Visiting Zhangjiajie Floating Mountain

12th April 2019 (Friday)

[To have a better view of the wide landscape photos, you are encouraged to download them, zoom in so that the top and bottom of the photos touch the edge of your computer screen and then scroll them left and right to get a 180° perspective of the landscape]

I went out before 7:00 a.m. to look for breakfast. The receptionist had not come to work but the door was already opened. When I came back from breakfast, the reception had still not started work but the door was wide opened now. I went back to my room.

I went down again at about 7:40 a.m.  The receptionist was there now. I wanted to ask to him about my planned itinerary this morning. Taking out the map, I told him I wanted to go to Tianzi cable car lower station, and then to Avatar Hallelujah Mountain before taking Bailong Elevator down from the mountain and returning to the hostel. He told me it was doable. I also told him I wanted to do Huangshizhai and Golden Whip. He said I could take the free park bus from Wulingyuan Gate to Golden Whip Stream (Shuiraosimen) and then hike to Huangshizhai. I said I preferred to go to Huangshizhai first, and on returning from Huangshizhai to take the Golden Stream Whip trail. He said in that case, I needed to take a public bus to Senlin Gongyuan Park Gate (Zhangjiajie National Forest Park) as there was no bus park going from Wulingyuan Gate to Senlin Gongyuan. It would cost me ¥10 for the bus fare.

Download this very large map for your reference

When I asked him about the park entrance ticket, he told me it was not ready and asked me to wait until 8:00 a.m. I then realised that someone must be buying the tickets in bulk and delivering them to hostels for their guests. The cost was ¥228, much cheaper than buying it at the park which I read would be ¥248.

At ten minutes to 8:00 a.m., I saw a woman arriving at the hostel. I assumed that she would be the ticket delivery person. She called the young man and exchanged some words with him. Seconds later, as she left, the receptionist delivered me my park entrance ticket. I paid him and left for the park hurriedly, worried that the queue to the park would be very long by now.

The square in front of the entrance was already crowded with visitors. I took some photos before entering the main building. There was security equipment on the right but nobody was manning it.

I walked through it and turned left to the ticket gates/ turnstile. Those needing to buy the entrance tickets needed to continue to the right where the ticket office was located.

The entrance ticket was scanned. Then, my right thumb was scanned before I was being let through the turnstile.

Upon entering the park, I saw the queue to get on the buses to my right. The queues were segregated according to destinations, with the queue to Bailong Elevator being the longest. The queue to Tianzi Mountain was relatively short, very short (on that morning at that hour). I understood later that day why everyone was going to Bailong. It turned out that once you have been to Yuanjiajie, you would have seen all. There was no need to visit another site because you would be "templed out" seeing pillars after pillars already.

When the park bus arrived, it was filled out in seconds, not minutes. Another would arrive immediately and there was no long wait. The ride went through a few very sharp bends. Luckily, I did not get sick.

The bus stopped and dropped off passengers at a drop zone. Visitors have to walk along a corridor of food vendors and up a short staircase before reaching the Tianzi cable ticket office. After buying the tickets, visitors needed to climb a few more storey of staircase, went through security check, with both big and small bags screened, before arriving at the lower cable car station. There was no long queue and passengers took the cable cars, with 8 pax to a car to the upper station.

A short distant in front of the cable car upper station was a bus terminal, with buses going to He Long (???) only.

At He Long???, it dropped off the passengers before leaving again. It was foggy and even if the area was beautiful, I could not see anything. I did not know which direction to take as there were no direction signs in English. I saw a tour group walking back as though they had been somewhere already. I walked to where they were returning from. It turned out it was just a toilet stop.

This area had no buses waiting for passengers to take to other destinations. I was looking around to find where the buses were parked. Facing the mountain side, I saw people on my left walking towards a structure which looked like the bus queue station. I walked towards it.

At the bus queue station, the direction signs did not show the direction to Yuanjiajie. Everybody had left and I was the only one waiting there. The gate lady opened the gate and asked me whether I was going to Yangjiajie. I replied no, but going to Yuanjiajie. She asked me to look for bus 3355. It would be going to both Yangjiajie and Yuanjiajie. I followed her instructions.

We arrived at a parking area. It was Yangjiajie bus parking area. Nobody alighted and the bus continued its journey. We arrived at The First Bridge parking area after 35 minutes from He Long Park. This would be one end of the Yuanjiajie trail.

There was no signboard showing the direction to Yuanjiajie trail, but I did see people walking up a short staircase. That should be the start of the trail. I was right.

The scenery was awesome. Photos and videos could not do justice to its beauty. A photo could probably capture 1/6 of what the eyes could see. Photos just could not capture the whole landscape that dazzled the eyes.

Where no trees or shrubs blocked the view, there were viewing platforms. It was amazing and incredible to see those tall, gigantic pillars standing there.

It was after a slow, beautiful walk of 1 hour 40 minutes before I reached the bridge to see Avatar Hellelujah Mountain @ Stone Pillar Supporting Heaven @ South Celestial Pillar.

From here, using my Garmin to guide me, I turned left to exit Yuanjiajie. I had seen the main attraction and had seen enough of the floating mountains. The bus parking area was not even 50m away. Buses would be going to Bailong Elevator.

I queued up to take the bus to Bailong Elevator. We were dropped off at Bailong ticket office.

I was busy taking photos and saw people queuing up for the buses. I did not have a Bailong Elevator ticket yet. I went to buy my Bailong ticket. By the time I got my ticket, there was nobody left at the bus queue. I queued up in front and a gate officer told me to get into the bus.

What happened next was an embarrassing situation. I arrived back at where I left at Yuanjiajie bus queue station. I queued up again, got into the bus and arrived back at Bailong ticket office once more. This time, I observed where the other passengers were going. They walked across a bridge and I followed from behind too. Facing the ticket office, the bridge was at my right. There was a boom gate at the entrance of the bridge.

After a 15 minute walk, we reached the elevator upper station, segregated by one-ticket passengers and others.

The Bailong Elevator lower station was not at ground level. Visitors have to walk down, maybe 5 stories of steps to reach ground level. At ground level, visitors have to queue up again to take the bus to Shuiraosimen. On the direction sign, it would be written as Water Winding Four Gates.

At what I assumed to be Shuiraosimen, all passengers were told to disembark. There was no sign in English showing the name of the place. I looked around. Where was the bus going to Wulingyuan Gate? Where was the queue station?

As I looked around, I saw at a distant the bus queue station. I walked towards it. A direction signed said, "Wulingyuan Sign Gate (Wujiayu)". I was not sure where that was and walked outside the queue station. A man came and asked me to walk back to the queue station. A couple behind me said they wanted to go Wulingyuan Gate and was told to do the same. So, "Wulingyuan Sign Gate (Wujiayu)" was Wulingyuan Park Gate.

The bus stopped briefly at 10 Mile Natural Gallery to drop off/ pick-up passengers before continuing to Wulingyuan Park Bus Terminal at the park entrance gate.