I highly suggest if you’re visiting to look at staying in Wulingyuan. It’s a lovely little town and there are so many locations to stay within walking distance of the park entrance. To enter you just need to scan your passport (the same as at a border control gate at the airport) and then you can pop it away for the rest of the day. Any other times you need to enter areas the facial recognition will connect you with your tickets as they are assigned to your passport.
First stop was getting on a bus that would take me to the lower cableway station for Tianzi Mountain. Wow, just wow. From the moment that cable car started heading up the mountain it was just incredible. It was so exciting and such a dream to be in this location and seeing these views. It’s just majestical and utterly amazing to get to witness and see such incredible creations that the planet has made over the course of it’s lifetime. Especially getting to see it with todays modern technologies and ease of access. It’s just breathtaking.
At one point I had one woman get very excited by me and proceed to take photos and videos with me. She even dragged me into get a photo with her at one of the spots her tour group were all getting their shots done. I made sure I got some footage of her too after all that. She was very excited to interact with me.
To be honest, it’s kind of nice to have people tell you you’re beautiful every day. Generally in life I don’t have a person, let alone multiple different people say that to me and it makes a difference. All the things I judge myself on or think I need to fix or change, and all that there are some people who see something else. It’s nice sometimes that people tell you that and you get to hear it because otherwise you only get your voice, and sometimes it’s not the nicest.
It’s nice to also get to say it back to people. There was one young girl who plucked up the courage to speak to me to tell me that, and I could see how shy she was, and I said thanks, you’re beautiful too. I saw her eye twinkle and her lovely smile grew and that was really nice. She then excitedly told her mum she spoke to me or something and her and her mum walked up to me smiling and said hello, nice to meet you. People just want to practise using their English, just as I keep trying to (and failing) to use my little Chinese.
Anyway, back to walking around the park. I went a little bit off the designated plan I think. I always will, the hotel were great at giving me a map and planning out the sites, but I have poor navigational skills and when names aren’t the same on all the things I am bound to get my orientation all askew. So I walked so paths and ways I might not have meant to, but in all of it I figured that this right now is the moment I am here and I don’t think I am going to be mad about seeing or doing anything I do. So I just wandered about. I was very excited seeing my first monkey in the wild.
By the afternoon the clouds had settled in more and by the time I got to the Avatar mountains it was all clouded over. Whatever path I took had my head in the clouds, barely able to see anything over the barrier edges. It was 100% still magical though and I’m happy with it all. It was a pretty epic first day of exploring this part. I feel like I saw a lot of different views and walked a LOT! I took the glass elevator down for a ride, which is pretty cool. You get on the elevator at the 326th floor, and get some final epic views as your scroll down the mountain before exiting onto a final viewing platform with of course monkeys all around.
I got some last photos of the mountains (and monkeys) and headed back to my accommodation. I got back to my hotel at about 6:30pm and was utterly exhausted. Knowing I had another day in the park tomorrow, I showered and passed out.
It was a nice walk back down the gallery and watching all the scenic railcars go by. I appreciated that they were all different cute themed animals. I got a ride up in the pig. The walk was was pretty calm down and it was nice to just take in the mountain views around me.
Back at the bottom of the gallery I got on a bus and headed to the next spot where the water winding four gates were – well I detoured to the bottom of the glass elevator entrance stop first and then had to catch the bus back a stop . From here I did a bunch of walking again, but stuck to the flat wheelchair access path instead of taking the pedestrian walk with stairs. It was such a lovely walk. It was at a lower terrain then what was walked the previous day so there were lovely views of rivers and looking up to see the majestic mountainous pillars. It was such a glorious day, and it was a lot quieter on path B today. I bet that those on the top walk, looking at the mountains were getting much clearer views than I got.
I really enjoyed just walking out in nature and taking in all the incredible sites. There was even a screen showing a clip from Journey to the West, at one point where it was filmed. I took a much more gentle approach on day 2 and was thinking that if you were going and you get 4 days with your ticket I would probably in the future look at being flexible with the days and the areas you visit and checking the weather. Obviously with 2 days it’s just go, go. So having some space to change your plans a bit more or take a day off between park days might be a nice way to do it too.
Once I got to the Natural Oxygen Zone, there was a local area display stall thing happening. The two girls at the front started chatting to me and asked if one of them could walk me around the stall and introduce me to some of the products from the area and local artists. So that was cool, I didn’t purchase anything but there were some great handmade items as well as lots of teas and different foods (most of which I couldn’t eat anyway).
I then walked over to get the next bus to the next stop and another cable car ride up to the Huangshi Village. There were so many monkeys here, and some incredible views too. It had cleared up quite a bit as the day went on. I bet those that were doing the walks I did the day before are getting some epic views today. After walking around for a bit and seeing what I did, I actually felt like I was done. My body was feeling pretty done and my legs really weren’t liking the idea of walking more than they had to. I decided to call it and take the cable car back down the mountain, and then the bus to the South Entrance and my exit for the day.
I was staying near and entered via the East entrance, but they run a bus shuttle service that takes you back to the east entrance from the south entrance for 8 ¥. Which is about $1.70AUD. That was super easy, just scan the WeChat code on the bus and pay for it directly.
After I got back I chilled out for a little bit, called Mum and Dad and then figured out where I wanted to go to get some dinner. After that I stopped in at one of the massage places to get a good foot, calf, massage. Oh boy! Did I need that. It hurt so good. I’ve never really gone in and done something like that before but it was so worth it! I did this just before I knew I was heading back to my hotel to organise myself for leaving the next morning and to just chill out and rest. I was done with being on my feet for the day.
The next morning I packed things up and headed to catch my next train to Chengdu. Monday I would be volunteering with the pandas.
