In 2019 Aric and I traveled abroad several times, to China, France, Italy and Singapore. After that first came COVID and later Aric was busy with his laundry shop. So it was only after 5 years that we could make a (short) trip together, again to China. The trip was planned for the first week of September, but both of us got dengue and we had to cancel it last minute.

Now we booked again, for 6-13 Novenber, hoping that the weather would still be acceptable. Our destination this time was the North-Western part of Hunan province. The most famous attraction is the Tianmen Mountain, receiving about 4 million visitors annually. But there is much more to see. In this Google Earth map I have marked the places we visited.

We took many hundreds of photos. In this blog I will just give an impression. More detailed blogs will follow later.

We started with the Zhang Jia Jie National Forest Park, since 1992 a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Famous for its quartzite sandstone pillars, many of them several hudred meters tall. Sometimes called a stone forest.

Fascinating landscape. One of the pillars is now named Avatar, apparently it inspired the makers of the Avatar movie to create the floating mountains in that movie.

A rewarding long hike. 10.6 km, 16000 steps, 44 flights climbed !

The next day we visited the Zhang Jia Jie Glass Bridge. This glass-bottomed bridge was opened to the public in 2016, It is 430 m long and suspended about 300 m above the ground.

First steps on the glass are scary, but you get used to it.

You can just walk back on the bridge but you can also continue in a more adventurous way. Using a zipline to cross back high above the canyon. Then use a slide to go further down. Quite an experience!

At the bottom of the canyon, you follow the river, partly by boat, the rest walking.

The next day we took a high-speed train (300 km/h) to Furong town. The old town is famous because of its location around a number of waterfalls. From our hotel room we had a perfect view.

Together with a crowd of (mostly local) tourists we walked down to the falls. You can even pass behind one of them.

We enjoyed our room, with the night view of the falls. Later we went out again for dinner. Still many day-trippers. The next morning it was very quiet.

Our next destination was Fenghuang ancient town (Phoenix), again by train. Phoenix is a traditional Chinese town, located on the banks of a river. Also here we had a room with a beautifull view.

Traditional houses on stilts, cruise boats on the river. We also enjoyed the view from our own balcony.

In the evening the town was brightly lit. We walked quite far along the river, crossing on one of the bridges and back using stepping stones. The next morning we walked in the old town to the iconic sign board of Phoenix.

The bext day we took the train back to Zhang Jia Jie. Our hotel was conveniently located at walking distance from the ticket office for the Tianmen Mountain. Although off-season, there was still an amazing number of tourist buses, so we were even a bit worried if we could get tickets.

In the evening we took a taxi to 72 Qilou, a bizarre “folly” of gigantic proportions. Imitating the Tianmen Mountain. Originally meant to be a hotel (?) it is now a popular tourist attraction with many eateries.

The next morning we woke up early to buy our tickets (7 am!) for the Tianmen Mpuntain . The weather had been excellent, but now it was cloudy with some drizzle. We started using the cable car, with more than 7 km one of the longest in the world.

We walked mostly in the clouds, above us there was often blue sky. One of the attractions is a glass walkway.

The clouds made it less scary.

The cliffside paths are also spectacular.

The Tianmen Mountain Temple on the top is a Buddhist temple.

It was another long hike. 10 km, more than 15000 steps, but relatively flat, only 11 flights climbed.

When we reached the Tianmen cave (a natural arch), we used escalators and stairs to reach the bottom of the cave.

From there you can descend 999 steps to the main square. But that would have been too much for me, instead we used another series of escalators.

We felt happy that we had made it. Sometimes the gate was visible for a short while.

We stayed there a couple of hours until at 6 pm the lights came on.

Mission accomplished!