45 minutes on this particular trail and we realized that there was absolutely nobody else around. It was an odd sensation for two residents of urban China where every space has eyes and the flow of humanity is a ceaseless feature of the cityscape.
YJ and I were in Western Hunan taking our bi-annual vacation, and the first stop was Zhangjiajie National Forest with its towering quartzite and sandstone pillars and lush, green scenery. Waterfalls and small streams pour through the mist down impossible looking precipices. It’s a stunning thing to behold, one of those places in China which make you realize that the cheesy shanshui painting in the Chinese restaurant back home isn’t so far fetched.
While Guilin and Yangshuo get a lot of attention, and with good reason, Zhangjiajie benefits from being just a nudge off of the main tourist trail, and the shear size of the park means that there are still places, like the trail we found, where on could spend an entire afternoon and see more lizards and monkeys than other human beings.
We flew directly from Beijing to Zhangjiajie on Saturday evening and decided to stay in Zhangjiajie City (as opposed to Zhangjiajie village, which is