Travels with Kathryn

They say that you should do something every day that scares you. Well, this is the day. I have a healthy “awareness” of heights, but really, it is not the height that is the problem, but bridges over high things, and (fear of fear) glass bridges. So today, I am going to be crossing the longest and tallest glass bottomed bridge in the world. Why? because I like to terrify myself every now and then. As Wenna can attest from my reaction to having to walk out on a glass bottomed platform over the Grand Canyon, I do this to myself occasionally, but I have to shuffle at a pace slower than that of an elderly Grandma…

Anyway, let us build up to that. So, I must say, I have been incredibly lucky with the weather – it was forecast to be heavy rain the whole time I would be in Zhangjiajie, and although we have had some showers on and off it has been relatively dry and clear. The ridiculous levels of humidity is just something one has to live with. I am constantly wet.

But to  begin at the beginning, I started the day with an excellent breakfast before they again drove me down the hill. Have I mentioned how great this hotel is?

So, as I alluded to, we started by with a short drive to the canyon within Zhangjiajie National Park. One could just enjoy a canyon, but the Chinese have decided it needed a bridge, and to make it out of glass. Its 430m long and 6m wide and is made of (lucky number for the Chinese) 99 layers of glass. For the Chinese, this is the big draw, and the bridge can hold 8,000 people at a time. Whilst its in a perfectly nice canyon, I do not feel it quite matched the spectatcular views of yesterday, so really it was just about embracing one’s fear. I made it across (just):

The centre of the bridge has the highest bungee jump platform in Asia (at 260m high). I decided I did not need to do this.

Now, after one has crossed the bridge, there was I thinking – yay! Done! Boom! Nope. You then go up and over (I love stairs me), and then there is another glass walkway I had to get across. I worry all this adrenaline is not good for me… To recover, I was ushered to a VR experience. This was included in the ticket price, and if not I really wouldn’t bother – I am not sure why you need to stand in a hot air balloon basket, put on a headset and relive being in the canyon you are actually in. Says a lot about me, that probably the best bit was they give you a little absorbant face sheet thing which you stick to your face before applying the head set which absorbed most of my face sweat.

So, there are then a couple of options to get down into the canyon. Option 1: Zip line, then mini slide; or option 2: lifts and then big slide. I am more of a slider than a ziper, so that is what I did. Turns out that my sliding was somewhat happened by wearing shorts (I genuinely had not considered this) so I mostly pulled myself down a slide… Anyway, I am not sure it was worth it. Particularly as because the water is so high, you can no longer take a boat along the river and have to take lifts and many, many, many stairs back up to the top.

Once I was back at the top, guess what? I had to go over the bridge again… Was it easier this time? No. Probably worse.

So, having survived that it was a quick pit stops for snacks – a fanta, bag of tomato flavoured crisps and a biscuit (I needed the sugar to recover) and a drive to the side of Zhangjajie to Tianmen mountain.

I shall be honest in that I had not acually heard of this, but my guide seemed rather upset by this, and I agreed that it was something I needed to visit. My visit (and really the whole Zhangjiajie experience) gives me an excellent opportunity to write about another commonality between the USA and China (doing my bit to try and bring them together in an attempt to assist in world peace). The Chinese do not like walking (nor do Americans) so in order to counteract this, they create theme park-like tourist opportunities where you can reach attractions via camel cars, mini trains, lifts, cable cars, escalators etc. Some of which I am very much onboard with, but even I feel like occasionally we could just walk! However, perhaps because tourism is older in this part of China, these helpful walk avoidance only alleviate the need to walk – not the need to climb stairs. Taking Tianmen Mountain visitor centre as an example, there is a cable car, however, to get to the cable car you there are 2 flights of stairs, then a queuing area, then another 2 flights of stairs, then another queuing area before the cable car – why? Anyway, I feel I have done enough stairs for a while…

Tianmen Mountain means “Heaven’s Gate” mountain, and the reason for its fame and incredible popularity (particularly with Chinese tourists) is because there is a cave which a natural arch  131.5m high. This can be reached by climbing the 999 “stairway to heavan” or you could take the longest cable car in the world – no contest in my view, yes, I took the cable car. Its 7km long, goes up 37 degrees, and takes 28 minutes.

But look at the view!

At the top, I was faced with more stairs (obviously) and YET ANOTHER glass walkway. However, luckily (for me anyway) the clouds came across which made it a lot less scary!

Another reason many people (and for “people”, please read “fools”) come to this mountain is to do silly things like wingsuit flying. They jump off the top of the mountain, go through the cave and land at the bottom of the steps. These people need to learn the joys of a nice sit.

To descend down the mountain (if you do not want to jump!), there are a chain of escalators which spit you out at the cave. Its kind of magical. It would have been more magical had no one been there, but I pushed through (both emotionally and physically to take some photos).

As I mentioned above, I decided not to take the stairway of heaven up to the cave, but I did a few steps up and down to get the effect. I also was not able to take 99 bends road which is currently being fixed for maintenance (previously, you could take shuttle buses down). People/fools also do variuos silly things down each of these: parkor or BMX down the steps, roller blading and high speed car chases down the road.

There was a final cable car down the mountain:

Well, all I can say is that I am very glad that I was talked into Tianmen montain as its beautiful. I am also very relieved that i survived all the glass bridges that I made myself walk over!

I returned to the hotel where I found I had my laundry washed, dried and back in my room (no charge obviously) and then I packed up, before an early night as I set my alarm for 5.45am tomorrow before my 7.34am train to Hangzhou. I am so pleased I came to Zhangjiajie- its absolutely stunning, and I really feel I have embraced the nature. However, I am looking forward to being less damp on my next stop (Hangzhou has like only 62% humidity) and to be back in a big city. There may even be less stairs – a gil can dream.