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 closer to the park.) Getting in on an evening flight, the thought of negotiating the 25 mile trip to the park gates.
As every traveler in China knows, just outside the main gates of the train station/bus depot/airport lurk the taxi guys and touts. They circle new arrivals like sharks, single-minded, determined, and dumb. The people at the hostel had told us it would be about 40 RMB and the first guy wanted 50 RMB. 10 RMB extra for the laowai tax wasn’t that onerous, and I was ready to go until a second guy came over and told our driver that his price was too low and he should charge us 70. Now YJ would have cut off her own achilles tendon and made it into a lanyard before she was going to let this joker get in the way. Faced with a tired, cranky YJ and an even crankier former rugby player, Mr. 70 RMB backed away but not before suggesting HE would take us to the hostel for 50 RMB. It was at this moment the opportunistic little bastard learned some choice English phrases involving anatomically improbably activities he could enjoy either during alone time or when next he visited family.
The hostel was an odd place. The website shows a picture of a lovely little wood chalet surrounded by a garden, so we were a bit surprised when the taxi driver dropped us off outside a rundown old building. The lobby was empty except for a large sign advertising “spa services” on the third floor.
Fortunately we read the directions which said the hostel was on the fourth floor.
Now, it was at this point that your correspondent, demonstrating the wisdom one accumulates after $150,000 of higher education, pondered out loud, “How can there be a chalet with a garden on the fourth floor?” In fact there was. The elevator opened onto a roof terrace and right there amidst the squalor of this particular nook of Zhangjiajie city was a bright little chalet set in a lovely garden. Too bad the rooms in the hostel weren’t inside the chalet, those were back in the main building, just down the hall from “the spa.”
The next day we took a car (80 RMB) to the gates of the park and worked our way past a veritable swarm of local residents all offering their services as “tour guide.”
YJ and I had discussed this at some length the night before, and decided that with our 4 RMB map, we could probably navigate the park and find our way to the small inn where we had booked a room for the night. It was a good call. The guides (going rate about 50 RMB/day) were pretty desperate, but the thought of being led around and being given long-winded explanations as to why this particular outcropping is called “Crane taking a dump on the dancing turtle rock” when the signage in the park was so thorough wasn’t really worth the hassle. We had also early on decided to take a few of the lesser-used trails and when we had auditioned a few guides back in the city, their response to our desire to get away from the main sites of the park and commune with nature were met with quizzical looks and things like “but there’s nothing up there, all of the services and stores are on the main road.”
Exactly.
Besides not having a guide or following a megaphone around, one other thing which set us apart was that we carried our bags through the park. I don’t blame people for looking at us funny. Most of the park was about as ‘backcountry’ as Greenwich, CT, and the site of a foreigner and his Haigui wife stomping around in hiking boots and a couple of backpacks no doubt tickled the provincial tourists clogging the main scenic artery which wound its way through the picturesque valley.
Fortunately for us though, we found a side trail that worked its way along one of the tributary streams and into a side ravine. The path was still cobblestones and stairs, but after about two minutes of hiking we were utterly, blissfully, alone except for the hum of insects and the fluttering of dozens of species of butterflies and moths. Yes after living for three years in the concrete wasteland of Beijing, even the sight of a couple of non-cockroach insects was enough to propel our minds to fantasies of wilderness adventure. Sad, but true.
The trail worked its way along the side stream for about two hours before it came to the headwall of the ravine and a set of precipitous staircases. It was doable but made for a sweaty and exhausting end to the day. The views were magnificent however, and the path was strenuous enough that we were spared the burden of sharing our hard earned vistas with anybody else save the birds and butterflies. After about 90 minutes of hard stair walking, trail magic smiled on us once again…our hostel was right at the top of the trail, along a ridgeline highway. Nothing fancy, but decent grub and and an air-con room in a sublime mountain setting was the perfect end to a day of hiking.
