My first ever visit to Guangzhou & it was only a short 50 minutes stopover as we have a train to catch. Thought the train ride is going to be fast, (otherwise you would not call it a bullet train)..but it was travelling at a speed of an ordinary LRT in KL - SLOW. Anyway, we arrived at Changsha - 2 hours & 45 minutes later (approx. 780km). A pretty tiring day.
Bus-shots from Guangzhou & the Guangzhou South Railway Station :
Bus-shots from Guangzhou & the Guangzhou South Railway Station :
Headed to Zhangjiajie on day two. Zhangjiajie is the highlight of this trip, actually & a long coach ride journey from Changsha to Zhangjiajie took us about 7 hours. Day three started off with a 45 minutes cable car & bus ride to TianMen Shan 天門山 (also called the Sky's gate / Heaven's Door coz of the big hole in the mountain) with its 999 stairs to the top! The TianMen Shan cableway has a length of 7,455 metres and it takes tourists from the atmosphere of a modern city directly to a primitive garden in the air & the mountain-winding bus road (aka the Heaven-linking Avenue), with its 99 sharp turns just like a flying dragon & has a length of less than 11km.
Our guide took us on a short detour to some wishing trees for us to snap photos..was too busy snapping away, never realised the weather was too misty, so when we reached TianMen Shan, visibility was really, really, really bad..nothing can be seen - at all!!. Because of this, we did not bother to tire ourselves by crawling up all those steps. Even the photos we took turn out misty - literally, and we had to resort to buying edited shots from shops which cost about RMB20.
Our guide took us on a short detour to some wishing trees for us to snap photos..was too busy snapping away, never realised the weather was too misty, so when we reached TianMen Shan, visibility was really, really, really bad..nothing can be seen - at all!!. Because of this, we did not bother to tire ourselves by crawling up all those steps. Even the photos we took turn out misty - literally, and we had to resort to buying edited shots from shops which cost about RMB20.
A shot of TianMen Shan on a "clear day"
Actual shot
Edited shot bought for RMB20
CULTURE SHOCK!!
Never mind the public toilets without doors/locks - one of the hotels we stayed in in Zhangjiajie has glass-walled bathrooms covered with only a thin layer of see-through curtain! Apparently, most bathrooms in hotels in Guangzhou & Guilin have designs with similar concept!..oh well....
Never mind the public toilets without doors/locks - one of the hotels we stayed in in Zhangjiajie has glass-walled bathrooms covered with only a thin layer of see-through curtain! Apparently, most bathrooms in hotels in Guangzhou & Guilin have designs with similar concept!..oh well....
