Zhangjiajie trip

Tao Yuanming, a poet of the Jin Dynasty, once wrote “晋太元中，武陵人捕鱼为业。缘溪行，忘路之远近。忽逢桃花林…”
The area written in the poem is also today’s Zhangjiajie City, Hunan Province.

After finishing my undergraduate graduation project, I decided to travel and relax for a few days. My destination was Zhangjiajie.

On the 5.6th, I took the train from Wuhan to Zhangjiajie, departing at 22.30 in the evening and arriving the next day. The train I took was a hard sleeper（cost 168RMB）, and because I didn’t bring earplugs, the snoring next to me was so noisy that I couldn’t sleep all night.
We arrived at Zhangjiajie West High-Speed Railway Station at 5.10am the next day. Since I had booked a hotel in advance using Ctrip, and the hotel was close to the Tianmen Mountain ticket gate (the hotel cost 126RMB), I spent 2 RMB at the high-speed rail bus station to take the No. 17 bus to the entrance of the scenic spot, then checked into the hotel to store my luggage and slept for 2 hours.

Next I will explain according to the scenic spots: Tianmen Mountain and Zhangjiajie National Forest Park.

TianmenMountain

When visiting Tianmen Mountain, you need to check whether you have tickets and the weather in the scenic area. Generally, the top of the mountain is colder than the city, so you need to bring a jacket or jacket.
When purchasing tickets, you need to choose your own tour route. There are three tour routes A, B, and C. Here is its website introduction. I chose Route A, which covers almost all the scenery of Tianmen Mountain. It takes a cable car from the starting point of the city directly to the top of Tianmen Mountain. This part is also the most shocking to me.

The cableway is 7,454 meters long, with a height difference of 1,277 meters and a one-way running time of 24 minutes.

It is said that Soda construction cost 260 million RMB.
After reaching the top of the mountain, you can overlook the city. Although the weather is cloudy, it also makes the city and mountains in the distance look more like Chinese ink paintings, with a unique beauty.

When you reach the top of the mountain, the scenic area divides the scenery into the east line and the west line. If you are pressed for time, you can only visit part of it. I personally feel that the west line is more like walking in the forest, while the east line is traveling on the cliff path. It feels more dangerous but also more exciting.
Eastern Line

Weastern Line

Since we had enough time, we traveled from the western line to the eastern line and visited all the classics on the top of the mountain. I also encountered a guzheng performance on the way to the eastern route. You can specify a song for 30 RMB, so I stayed there for a while and listened to a “Green Flower Porcelein” song ordered by others. During the period, a little girl danced along with the melody, which was extremely cute.
video here

During the tour, you will pass through several glass planks. Although the ticket includes it, you need to pay a shoe cover fee for each section you pass. Although it is not expensive at 5RMB, you need to take the shoe cover back after each walk to facilitate the toll for the next section of the glass plank road, so I just Walked once.

After you have visited all the scenery on the top of Line A, you need to go down to Tianmendong Square from the mountain-traveling elevator near the starting point. Although this elevator is very long, there is nothing interesting to see because it is built inside the mountain. Before coming, I I thought it was a transparent escalator that allowed me to view the scenery outside, but obviously I misunderstood.

After arriving at Tianmendong Square, you can choose to walk up the 999 steps to the cable car, or you can take the cable car. I don’t know about this. Anyway, I decisively chose to walk up the 999 steps. After I got down, my knees were shaking.

After that, I took the cable car back to the foot of Tianmen Mountain.

Then,I took the scenic shuttle bus at the foot of the mountain and returned to the hotel. It took me about 7 hours to browse Tianmen Mountain. Finally, I returned to the hotel and slept until 9pm before going out to eat.