Fenhuang

The town of Fenhuang in western Hunan Province

Fenhuang means "phoenix" in Chinese

The town is built along the Tuo River

Looking upstream you can see two bridges, one a traditional footbridge and the other a set of stones.

But Fenhuang is most famous for these riverside houses built on stilts.

On the left, is Hong Qiao, or Fenhuang's equivalent to Ponte Vecchio in Florence.

Oh China........allowing a passenger to smoke on a wooden boat!

To some extent, this scene is disappearing and Fenhuang becomes a tourist town and the locals are pushed out.

Heading downstream crossing under an arch of Hong Qiao...

We are treated to a bend in the river with more riverside houses.

On the approach to Hong Qiao

On the top floor of Hong Qiao we are treated to great views.

Fenhuang has a couple specialties.  I didn't partake of pigs face...

But I am a big fan of ducks blood with sticky rice.  Yum!

Although not a Fenhuang specialty, Mom can't ever pass up stinky tofu.

Dad takes pictures of everything.  But this one is interesting.  What he's taking a photo of is the price list for entering into the city.  Fenhuang has instituted a policy (as in April 2013) that to enter the city a person must purchase an entrance pass.  This has reduced visitors and severely hurt local merchants.

And now, Fenhuang at night.  Perhaps even more spectacular.

Far upstream, they've completed a new bridge.

Mom and Dad crossing the footbridge.

Tianmen Shan

Day 2 (what was to be day 3 of the Zhangjiajie portion of the trip) was a trip up to Tianmen Shan.  We were once again not blessed with sun, but on this day also socked into the fog.  Bad luck.  But it was beautiful nonetheless.  We got a taste of it.....

A visit to Tianmen Shan starts with a 35 minute cable car ride. You read that right....35 minutes.

Most of it like this.  I've ridden in many a cable car in my life.  This was spectacular!!

At the top is a cliffside walk, which takes you around a good portion of the mountain.

Clouds.......we could see a hint of the valley, peaks and greenery below.  But it never cleared.

Tianmen Shan recently replaced one part of its walkway with a glass floored walkway.  It was fantastic!!

We're not done yet.  The cable car has mid-mountain station which is the way to view Tianmen Shan's most famous feature.

A drive up this crazy winding road to see....

The hole in the mountain.

A last look at the Tianmen Shan region.  The clouds and fog....

Wulingyuan

After six days in Beijing, it was time for Mom, Dad and I to hit to road!  First stop, was down to Northwest Hunan province to visit the famed Zhangjiajie region, and most specifically Wulingyuan National Park.  But every trip has its hiccups and ours came right out of the shoot. We had a direct flight at 640AM from Beijing to Zhangjiajie.  When we got to the airport, I didn't see the flight on the board.  I started to get worried thinking that it wasn't a good sign.  My suspicions were right.  The flight was cancelled. (I now am very familiar with the words 撤销）After some scrambling, we managed to get on a flight to Changsha (the capital of Hunan) but then had a 10 hour layover before our flight to Zhangjiajie. I called our guide and he arranged for us to be picked up in Changsha, taken to the bus station and then rode a bus for four hours and arrived at Zhangjiajie that afternoon. Mom and Dad were troopers!!

Wulingyuan, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Even though it wasn't sunny, in the morning we got to see the pinnacles and peaks amongst the low clouds.

This elevator takes visitors to the top level of the peaks and there is a path so one can look down into the valley.

This picture does NOT convey the scale or the height from which the picture was taken. I am looking straight down.

Funny story.  Both of Dad's camera batteries died.  So he hijacked my camera and stuck his memory card in it to use for the rest of the day.

So I've heard of this practice of having little fish eat the dead skin off your feet.  Here it is!

We ended the day with a walk along the valley floor to look up at the peaks.  It was great to be able to try and imagine what it would be like to live in this area and look up at these every day.