The Avatar Mountains: Zhangjiajie National Park

The 高考 Gao Kao - the college entrance exam, the most stressful event in the lives of many contemporary Chinese people, and worthy of a post of its own - is another one of those glorious occasions when foreign teachers are on vacation in China but no one else is.  My first Gao Kao break, I went to northern Hunan's 张家界 Zhangjiajie National Park with Alicia, a fellow wai jiao who also suffers from the Xinjiang phenomenon.  There are times in China when things don't seem as different as they "should," but then there are times when China is otherworldly.  Visiting Zhangjiajie was one of those times.  

Like most parks in China, things have been "civilized" a bit - the 245 RMB entrance fee grants visitors access to a network of paths and concrete steps, cable cars and electric minibuses connecting main spots. There is even the all-glass 白龙 bai long (Hundred Dragons) elevator up one of the mountains, saving thousands of steps and offering an unobstructed vista (which is pretty cool). Suppesedly a glass bridge is now in the works somewhere.  However, if you ask a park attendant for advice and then go the opposite way he recommends, you can dodge the tour groups and selfie sticks and find a world of your own, with birds chirping in dense forest, paths growing mossy from lack of maintenance, and plenty of fresh air (but you might still have to ward off hungry monkeys with sticks). 

Anyway you cut it, Zhangjiajie will reward you with fantastic views of its main drawcard - almost vertical karst peaks of slate grey walls studded with tiny caps of lush vegetation, where (most likely) no one but the odd bird has ever stood, soaring over valleys of clear, cold mountain streams.  (Even streams like this are a rare treat in China, where most water is anything but clear.)  When the bottoms of these peaks are cloaked in morning mist, one doesn't need much imagination to see the floating islands from that famous movie. Although, as always, other places have tried to lay claim, Zhangjiajie seems utterly unique.  The scenery is spectacular. The panoramas are stunning.  Sunset's not bad, either.  Looking out over these mountaintops, it's easy to forget the rest of the world.

Alicia and I spent three days here, maximizing our time and walking our socks off.  Once, we even went up an accessible karst peak due to daydreaming (we noticed when the steep incline didn't stop). We snacked on the corn, tea eggs, watermelon, pineapple, and fish offered on small sticks by the vendors on the most popular trails - whole fish, of course. We fought off over-fed monkeys with larger sticks. (When I didn't have any food in my hands to feed one, it scratched my arm in protest.) At the time, Alicia's Chinese was much better than mine, so she did all the eavesdropping. It was China and NOT China all at once - and disorienting to return to school.

Photos are courtesy of Alicia's (much nicer than my) camera!