After Yangshuo and our first of the really long train journeys - 18 hours - we arrived in Zhangjiajie in the early hours. Our first experience of a hard seat sleeper train left us all pretty exhausted but we decided to power on through to make the most of our first day in Zhangjiajie.
The girls decided to find what looked like a temple on the city map, while the boys were left to their own devices. As it turns out the supposed temple was a) at the top of an epic hill of what felt like 100's of stairs, and b) wasn't a temple. Instead of a lovely temple at the top of this hill we found a sort of memorial obelisk and a locked pagoda. Not entirely convinced it was worth all the stairs!
By this point sleep deprivation was well and truly kicking in so we had a quiet night to recharge in preparation for the main event, the Avatar Mountains, the next day.
The Avatar Mountains are what Zhangjiajie is most famous for and before the film came out the city didn't really have any Western tourism. As many Westerners who came before us, we came exclusively for these mountains so we were hoping for something impressive.
After negotiating student price entry tickets (still a hefty 160元) using our driving licenses - "this is what a student I.D looks like in the UK!" - we ventured into the Zhangjiajie National Park, where the mountains are. A cable car took us 1000's of feet up, and as we ascended the views surrounding us became more and more beautifully breath taking.
Once on top of the mountain we spent the day ogling at the views and playing who can shout louder against the Chinese tourists across a particularly echoey area. It's easy to see how the mountains in the Zhangjiajie Naional Park could inspire an alien landscape and the tower-like peaks drapped in greenery really did look remarkably like the floating mountains of Pandora. It was a welcome change to get out of the city for a day and embrace the quiet calm of the mountains, and I could have easily whiled away many more hours staring out across the scenery that has inspired filmmakers and poets alike.
Once we'd taken in the Avatar Mountains we spend most if our time exploring the city, and let me say straight off there wasn't a great deal to explore. We did manage to somehow wander away from the centre to the derilict, poor area of the city. It's the side of China you see in photos condemning communism and seems to be the hidden side of the country, away from the skyscrapers and shopping malls. Eventually we stumbled upon the river that runs through Zhangjiajie and decided to follow it, just to see where it went.
The most excitment of the day slithered out of us as we walked along the river in the form of a snake. Meileen had walked past the snake as it lay hidden in the paving cracks but as I walked past the snake reared it's head making us scream and retreat in a ridiculously girly manner. After a good 10 minutes debating whether to walk past the snake, or to retreat and loop round, I made a manic dash for it as the snake lay passively in it's crack. We may have slightly over reacted to the snake, but it's the little dramas that keep the trip interesting!
Although it was a long train journey to see one site, and although the city of Zhangjiajie itself has relatively little to offer, I would say that the mountains were worth the visit. The ticket we bought was valid for three days, and had we had the time I could have gladly made use of all three days available to us. It's a downside of the type of travelling that we're doing that we want to see as much as possible in a short period of time and so move so often. It means that sometimes we may not see as much of a place as we would like to or we may skip out some sites that we would see if we had more time. But for now that's okay by me, the pressure to "do China" isn't on in the same way it is for those who are going back home. At the moment a broad sweep of China is proving fun and enlightening, and perfect for where I am in my adventure right now.
Next stop for us is Kunming, home of the Dwarf Kingdom!
Zhangjiajie: 7/10
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