Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Probably the latest wake up we'd had in a while - 9am. It was heavenly. We ate breakfast leisurely while checking emails and looking through photos from the previous day before packing up all of our bags, checking out and moving them into storage. First activity for the day was visiting the Giant Salamder Rescue Centre and Science Museum about 300m down the road from our hostel. None of us had ever actually seen a Salamander before so we were all very excited. Once again, we secured three student passes (we genuinely feel like James Bond every time we do this!) and we were given an English speaking tour guide to show us around the exhibition. It was actually very good as we were shown the history of the Zhangjiajie local park as well as some facts about the local wildlife etc. Turns out leopards are extremely common in the mountains! The last part of the tour involved actually seeing several living Giant Salamanders. Chinese Giant Salamanders are the largest amphibians in the world and are also extremely endangered. They can live for over 200 years and grow over 2 metres in length! The first 4 that we saw ranged from between 1m to 1m80 and were between 30 and 70 years old. We then saw some smaller salamanders who were between 5 and 9 years old (still pretty big for lizards at several foot long). The area open to the public turned out to only be a very small fraction of the whole facility and there were tens of huge pools where Giant Salamanders were being bred to avoid them going extinct.
The next activity was seeing Baofeng Lake. Student tickets in hand, we strolled into the nature reserve and consulted the map of the area. There were two routes - one went directly to the lake and was completely flat. The other was a 4km semi circle through the mountains and involved over 2400 steps to the peak before descending back down to the lake. As if we hadn't done enough walking in the last 4 days, we somehow made the unanimous decision to take the hike. There was quite literally NOONE else on the walk. Taking it in turn to count 100 steps, we plodded up the mountain without breaking. At around 2000 steps the path broke into two. There was a reasonably well maintained path continuing straight on and to the left a very steep path overgrown with ferns to the point where the steps were actually concealed and cobwebs were strung across at head height. Inspired by Wangs adventures the previous day, we chose to depart from the beaten path and attempt the climb. We ended in a clearing with some sort of stone carvings which had been completely weathered away and were now incomprehensible. Another path on the far side of the clearing looked even more deserted and so we decided to head that way. We had to trek holding sticks out in front of us to catch the spiders webs so they didn't go in our faces and keep a careful footing considering there was no actual path beneath us. About 10 minutes in we realized that we were going nowhere. With time as a limting factor, we decided to accept that we were going in the completely wrong direction to anything of any interest and headed back to the normal path.
About 20 minutes after that we stumbled across a Buddhist temple in the middle of the mountain! There was just one monk there guarding in who let us in to look around. As with most temples, a huge golden Buddha greeted us upon entry and a number of religious figures surrounded the main hall. After a quick prayer we turned around to head out the temple when we noticed the amazing effect the light had outside. For some reason the light outside appeared glowing a warm yellow colour but when we stepped outside it looked totally normal again! The monk then pointed us towards a well in the corner of the plateau where he signaled for us to drink some water for good health. It tasted very strongly of minerals and left a rough taste on our tongues but was refreshing none the less. Another short hike and we reached a second, much more touristy temple where we didn't feel particualry welcome after refusing to buy expensive sticks of insence to pray with. The last leg of the hike took us past a monkey cage which was quite a depressing sight. Their natural habitat was literally right outside their cramped cages and the stench of faces was unbearable.
Crossing a small bridge we reached the lake and grabbed an ince cream while we waited 20 minutes for the next boat to depart. The seating on the boat was in 2's and George sat the row behind Josh and Sam which proved to be a hilarious mistake! The Chinese all scremed at all the gils who got on the boat to sit next to him and when one eventually did everyone cheered so loudly! Sam and Josh sung happy birthday to George in Chinese similarly to the night before to embarrass him and all the boat joined in! We passed a couple of boats with Tibetan folk singers on board who sung songs to us but apart from that the boat just drove us around the lake so that we could see all the scenery. The commentary was in Chinese but to be honest we didn't think it was necessary to understand it to appreciate the amazing views. It was actually very similar to Halong Bay in Vietnam. Upon debarking the boat, George was wished a Happy Birthday by the commentator and we heading to the waterfall. A rope bridge crossing over the plunge pool seved as great entertainment for us and allowed us to feel the full power of the waterfall. We then hiked up the side of the waterfall to very near the top before climbing back down and getting on a bus back to our hostel. Arriving back around 3pm, we ordered lunch and got changed ready for our train journey.
Knowing we had a train to catch at 5:25pm we eventually left the hostel at 4:30pm. The train station is a good 40km away and taxis are not overly common in Zhangjiajie so in hindsight we are not really sure why we thought this would be a good idea. In fact, in hindsight we appear like the biggest idiots ever considering every time we have had to catch any kind of transport we have left it until the very last minute to do so resulting in ridiculous sprints through every bus and train station we enter! We like to think of it less as idiotic and more as spontaneous and fun. Sticking to our last minute sprinting tradition, when the taxi pulled over at the train station, Sam had the money ready in his hand and Josh's rucksack was already on so when George opened the door he could sprint across the forecourt to find the right platform while Sam paid the driver and George got the other bags out of the boot. Despite the previous tasks being carried out at world record breaking speed and precision, there was no way any running would turn back time. We had missed out train. Our time on a comfortaoble sleeper train would not become a reality today. Panic then set in. We had wasted 154RMB on sleeper tickets and were fairly certain there were no seats available on the 18h30 train which would mean having to stay another night in Zhangjiajie, miss our connecting train which we had also already paid for and push our itinerary back a day. Bad times. Josh sat with the bags while George and Sam ran over to the ticket office to try and negotiate some kind of solution. 10 minutes later and we were the proud owners of 3 seating tickets for the 18h30 train (not sleeper seats but equally not standing) and a 70RMB refund for the difference in price. Happy times. The train also somehow gets in at the same time as the previous one so catching our connecting train should not be an issue (we are writing this at 21h11, still on the first train, so touch wood this is true and we are not stranded in Luizhou as we find out we've booked the wrong tickets…). After a quick throw around of the rugby ball in the middle of the train station (you can imagine the how much this excited our fellow passengers!) and after downing a few pints of chocolate milk (George brought Nestle chocolate powder out with him for which we will all be forever grateful) we boarded the delayed train at 19h06.
Unfortunately, we quickly realized that we were not in for a peaceful, private journey. The lady next to us was quick to start a conversation in Chinese. Somehow Josh maintained chat with her in Chinese for quite a while with occasional help from Sam. She was nonetheless impressed and decided to pester us for the next hour. The rugby ball was the first topic of conversation as we explained to her, and the rest of the carriage who were now all on the feet staring at us, what it was. She then whipped out her English textbook because she was studying to speak the language and asked us to help her with an exercise where you have to correct 10 mistakes in a passage of English. Turns out Chinese-English textbooks are genuinely appalling as we found over 17 mistakes despite allowing some rather dubious grammatical structures to slide (just read this back and before you make a comment, we can see how this may sound very Cambridge). Excited at the opportunity to learn some English from some proper native speakers (despite claiming to be a mix of Serbian and American), she asked George if she could read some of the book he was holding. This book was called "The Game". If you haven't heard of this book you do not want to and if you have you will understand how nervous the three of us were as she turns to page one and begins reading. Ten grueling minutes later she hands the book back. "What did you think of it?" we cautiously asked. "I didn't actually understand any of it" she replied. Thank. God. After another brief discussion about our lives (joined now by the train security guard who perched on the end of the seats next to us excitedly listening in yet clearly not understanding a word we said) during which it was revealed that George was in fact an entrepreneur living in Shanghai setting up his own phone company called Gan-Net who was 25…today! Once again, the carriage burst into song "zhu ne sheng ri quai le" they chanted! We then tried to sever the ties with our new best friends before it got too late and they talked to us the remaining 9 hours of the journey so we put on our headphones and tried to sleep. Unfortunately, they spotted Josh's guide to China, which became another object of fascination for a short period of time before eventually the train arrived at the ladies stop and we were relieved of our entertainment duties. With 7 hours to go, it was time to get some sleep.
- comments