Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Alarm goes at 04h45. EURGH. George is too good at getting up in the morning and bounds out of bed, whacks on the lights and gets his stuff together. Begrudgingly, Sam and Josh follow suite and by 05h10 we had checked out. The hotel was right next to the train station which was nice so we got to our platform right on time for once and when the train arrived we were delighted to be given SEATS! Such a luxury. Munching on a couple of bananas for breakfast and typing up this blog, we were content with how things had turned out. Its now 06h24 so we've got another 3 hours of so before we reach Zhangjiajie. Let's hope everything goes to plan upon our arrival.
The rest of the train journey was pretty uneventful and we slept for most of it. Once in Zhangjiajie we grabbed a taxi to our hostel, haggling him down from 200RMB to 80RMB which is a good price considering the hostel said it should be around 120RMB. The hostel was another great shout. We'd been upgraded for free to a three man dorm because they didn't have many bookings so we had a room to ourselves. The internet was also ridiculously fast for China and the hostel resturaunt was very cheap. We chilled in the hostel restaurant area for an hour or so, checking e-mails and eating lunch before packing up a bag and heading out. First things first, with the painful memory of the 17 hour seatless journey still burnt into our heads we thought we should book the next leg of our travels. Fortunately there was a train booking office just down the road and after a quick debate about whether or not to go for hard or soft sleeper, we chose to rough it again and went for hard. We say roughing it but compared to squatting in the smoking compartment nothing can be described as rouging it frm now on.
Next stop was the national park of Zhangjiajie. Famous for being one of the locations used to film Avatar (around 25 minutes of the film was apparently taken from this scenery), we were excited to see what it had to offer. At the entrance gate we were met by an, at first, annoying Chinese man bugging us about giving us a private tour. At first we did the standard "Bu yao, bu yao!" (I don't want it!) and just haggled his price down out of curiosity. When we reached 50RMB (£5) for 5 hours and realized the park is a total of 254 square kilometers and all we had was a Chinese map, it suddenly became less of a joke and more of an incredibly amazing and invaluable opportunity! Wang therefore temporarily became a part of the wolf pack. He was our brother from another mother and just as he guided us round this amazing national park, we offered him life guidance and even bought him a stick of chicken claw. On the bus on the way up to the cable car stop, we engaged in deep conversation with Wang's guide buddies who were all gutted we chose Wang over them but at the end of the day Wang was definitely top dog of the Zhangjiajie tour guide scene so we were happy with our decision. After another ridiculous spy mission to get the three of us student prices on the cable car, we were cheaply and comfortably flying up through the mountain scenery with Wang at our side. His knowledge of the local area was fascinating, or at least we imagined it would be if we could understand a word. We would just all look at nod when he pointed at something in the distance. Ocassionaly this became a little awkward when he would engage in a conversation with George or Josh and they would just pretend to understand to humour him. He loved it.
The first areas that Wang took us were pretty amazing but also very much part of the standard tourist route. We navigated between several easily accessible view points to see the valleys below which was a truly incredible sight. There were also several little stalls at the top selling random tack and we all bought jade stones said to bring us good luck (haggled down from 20RMB for one to 15RMB for 3!). Wang then proved his practical knowledge of the area as he waved us over to climb off the edge of the path. Although initially slightly apprehensive to follow Wang into the jungle, we nervously clambered down the VERY steep, VERY slippery mountain in our flip flops and Toms! A short trek through the jungle, not even on a path, led us to a small cliff face with weathered down steps carved into it. Wang, despite being nearly 60 years old, lept up to the top like a mountain goat. The three of us followed slowly since the steps were so slippery and spiders the size of our fists were crawling around everywhere, however, when we did reach the top we realized why Wang had taken us here. We emerged onto a rock plateau, about 5m long without a trace of human interference. We soon realized that we were literally standing in the middle of the park with the best views we had ever seen in our lives. All around us were vertical drops of several hundred metres - it was as if we were on a giant natural observation tower with views so clear we could practically see the entire mountain range. We were so excited we stayed there for around half an hour, taking far too many photos and praising Wang! He loved it. He became a little obsessed with our camera too and wouldn't stop taking pictures and high fiving us - such a lad. Once we were satisfied there were a couple of cover photo worthy pictures (wish we were joking) we clambered back down and trekked back to the main path. On our way to the next view point we passed a stall selling a variety of absolutely vile looking meats we just knew Wang would love. We were right! A 3RMB chicken claw on a stick and he was as happy as Larry. The rest of our time in the park was spent trekking around seeing the main physical attractions of the park such as the Emperor's brushes, the….. (all limestone formations) but nothing compared to the view from earlier. All this while George was becoming practically fluent in Chinese as he engaged in conversations with Wang about the scenery and environment. Some people would have criticized him saying that he didn't actually understand a word and was just talking jibberish and responding with different facial expressions when Wang talked back. Don't hate the playa, hate the game - some people are just quick leaners. He did actually translate honey and bee correctly which is pretty impressive.
Somehow time had flown past and the park was closing. Back at the cable car, Josh and Sam tried to save money by sneaking in with their used tickets but unfortunately this did not work and they just had to go to the ticket office, buy new ones and join the back of the queue! Nevertheless a few minutes later we were back at the base of the mountain reserve. A dark cloud then moved over the group as it sunk in that the end of our tour was synonymous with the end of our time with Wang. It felt like we had known him our entire lives: we had shared DMCs about how he should go about getting an English girlfriend (learning from the pros), he had taken us places we would never had gone without him, after his camera obsession he will probably be tagged with us in more photos than we're in with some of our best friends from home; we had laughed together, eaten together, even sung together. This was a very sad moment. However, we then realized that this didn't have to be the end. One day we will come back and find Wang and the wolf pack will be complete once again. Until then, we had his mailing address so we could send him all the photos which we will definitely do.
After saying goodbye, we jumped in a taxi and headed back to our hostel to shower and change. Sam and George went out to scout a restaurant for our evening meal and when they eventually returned they were confident they had found somewhere good for dinner. The beers were expensive for a street restaurant so we just bought some from a local shop and amused the locals by playing overly obnoxious and loud drinking games which they loved! We also pretended it was George's birthday and kept on singing happy birthday - something that has become a bit of a habit now in public places! Granted the food was excellent, when the bill arrived we were shocked. 225RMB!!! £22.50 may not sound like a ridiculous price for a huge traditional Chinese meal but for street food it was a total rip off. And so commenced the world's longest argument which eventually led to half of the town getting involved and a Chinese man threatening Josh with a glass bottle. They would not budge on price at all so eventually we were forced to throw down 209RMB and run. Run is not an exaggeration -they wanted to kill us! The walk back to our hostel was a tense one as every car that passed we could imagine pulling over and producing 5 angry Chinese men to beat us up. Fortunately this did not happen and we returned to the hostel in once piece. Josh and Sam completed their ab challenge again and this time stepped the press-ups to 120 before the three of us went to bed.
- comments