ZhangJiaJie

After check in, we discovered an awesome place for dinner that catered for our non-meat-eating friends - Evan and Mich. This was to become our local for the next few days. We rotated a very varied menu of dumplings, noodles or fried rice - they were all nom!

Next morning was our big trip to Zhangjiajie National Park. YAHOO! We were all mega excited. Neil was waiting and hoping for his jaw to drop at the sights. And it was jawdropping. It was amazing. We didn't arrive til 12 noon, which actually turned out to be a bit better as the morning haze had lifted and the views were better. On our entrance to the park, we witnessed a young Chinese fellow holding a plastic bag full of snacks and goodies, being attacked by a pack of monkeys! They all stormed him and grabbed his bag and ran off. The poor fella nearly had a heart attack. Mental note. Do not carry any food in sight of the monkeys.

We started out by getting the cable car up to the top of the mountain to avoid the 3500 steps up. The cable car was EPIC.

It was SO HIGH UP and pretty scary for Michelle who, as I may have mentioned, is terrified of heights. (JUNCTION THEORY LISA WILL YOU SHUT UP!)

It was amazing. I've never seen such awesome rocks in my life, and here we were just cable-carring it up between them. It was fantastic - really impressive. These stacks are apparently formed from years of erosion - mostly ice expanding and cracking during the winter. Once we got out of the cable car, the two lads power walked ahead of us as they only had 1 day in the park and wanted to squeeze in as much as possible, whereas we had two or 3 days if we wanted. Good thing too, there was so much awesomeness to see, it took us ages to get around. There were tons of monkeys on patrol on route. We witnessed another girl getting her corn on the cob yanked out of her hand - Jungle Book Stylee. We were considering telling her about the monkeys when we passed her but then we thought she'd be ok. 1 minute later, her COTC was gone. :D

The park had never-ending Jaw-dropping scenery, with each rock more impressive than the last.

It was a truly awesome and unique landscape. It was very packed with tourists though. One gentleman farted in my direction! I dunno who looked more surprised - me or him! :D I stupidly thought taking the steps back down again would be a fun idea and a bit quieter.. Once again - my bad! It took ages and was pretty harsh on the knees and poor Michelle's feet, who had now developed a whopper heat rash on her legs. EEK! We hotfooted (boom boom) it back to the hostel to stick her in a bucket of cold water.

We bid farewell to the two lads who were off in different directions. We were sorry to see them go as we had a great laugh altogether with them.

Next day, Chelle's legs were in bits, but like a trooper, she decided to go back to the park. We stuck her in a long flowy skirt and flip flops and decided to do the park as easily as possible. We entered the park from a different entrance today. This way was much busier with tourists, but did provide lots of free buses around the park which were actually great. Today's scenery was just as good, with an even scarier cable car ride. Chelle was doing some heavy breathing on the floor of the cable car. .BWAHAHAHAHAHA. The weather wasn't as clear today but the landscape was still terrific.

Another awesome day out for the lads. We kept bumping into this Swedish couple at every stop too. We passed a few Echo points too, where I did a few big whistles into them, and someone whistled back. HURRAH! Pretty feckin cool. We had a great laugh and Chelle was very good at putting up with my general impatience and excitement.

Later we chased a giant roach around our room and Chelle booked us into a fancy hotel for our last night together tomorrow. awwwwww.

The following day I had a frustrating encounter with train personnel trying to buy a train ticket. The lady took my passport, wouldn't give me a ticket, kept pointing at something, while everyone behind me shouted over my head at her. Tum tee tum. I needed a break. We stocked up on supplies and headed to our fancy hotel for a few beers and a day of lazing around, which was great.

Once again, the next morning, I was super sad to leave another awesome travelling companion and I got a bit teary-eyed and felt tres emotional for the rest of the day and my 24 hours of train journeys to Chengdu. Luckily everyone I met was super nice to me today. Staff in the station restaurant were super helpful, I met a gang of lovely Canadians in the waiting room and a young chap named Chong was in the top bunk beside me on the train. We chatted away to each other using apps and pictures. He also showed me a skeleton mask he had in his bag. (as ye do).