November 4: Lazing Around in Kunming City

Another lazy day today. Left the hostel at around 11am and went out with my friend around the shopping district. We went back to TaoBaoJie 淘宝街 as she wanted to look for a particular hat. I wanted to have some decent restaurant food for lunch since I was a little tired of the street food and did not want to risk getting any food poisoning on my last full day in Kunming. Turns out its not easy to find a proper restaurant even in town area and in the end, I settled for Ajisen since my friend only had ramen once before.

Ajisen in Kunming is very affordable with a normal pork broth ramen with charsiu costing only 28rmb! About 1/3 of the prices in Singapore. Our two bowls of premium ramen, 2 additional marinated eggs, fried calamari, iced milk tea and fried spicy minced pork for my ramen only cost 136 in total.

After a long lunch, we walked along the pedestrian street so that I could grab a bit of knick knacks from the roadside stalls. Time passed too fast today and before we knew it, it was getting dark. Since my friend was not staying in the hostel anymore and had to catch her bus back home, we headed to the bus stop in Renmin Street to catch her bus K9 after grabbing her stuff from my hostel.

Dinner was originally instant noodles in my hostel since I had bought a bowl a few days ago. However my friend from Zhangjiajie vehemently objected to me having instant noodles since she had heard of too many food poisoning and cancer cases linked to instant noodles that are made in China. Hence, I went down to have dinner at the hostel bar. A simple but filling meal of Cordon Bleu, spring rolls and a bottle of vitasoy cost about 60rmb.

Back in my room, I chatted with a new roommate for a while. He's a Lhasa native and told me to contact him when I'm planning to go to Lhasa or Tibet since he can help arrange visa and travel arrangements. It's always really nice getting to know folks from different parts of the world.

Having to wake up at 4am the next day, I TRIED to turn in early but failed as I couldn't fall asleep. Ended up sleeping at 2am.

November 3: Shopping in Kunming

Today was yet another day spent without much plans, but turned out to be really fun. Woke up at about 8 today but only left the hostel at 11:30. My roommate and I headed down a back alley at my hostel and we walked along a street filled with locals having their breakfasts and lunches. I had wanted to have a really local brunch and so we stopped at a small eatery opened by a couple of Guangzhou folks. I had century egg porridge while she had plain porridge, and we shared steamed pork buns and dumplings.

After the satisfying brunch, we meandered along the streets towards the walking street along Jingxing street. Along the way there, I came across a Sharetea outlet that sold drinks with a large cup option of 1L sizes! That 1L of taro milk tea (21rmb) lasted me the entire afternoon. The walking street is a long street filled with many stalls selling food, jewelry and knick knacks. In addition, we came across a few shops selling animals as pets. It was rather sad to see so many animals cramped into small cages and even frogs that have been dyed green and pink. You can find ten rabbits housed in a cage barely 40cm by 30cm by 30cm! Despite the cruelty to the animals, the entire street was quite an experience as it is frequented by the Chinese and we did not see any westerners for the hours that we were there.

Along the street was also an old building that housed jewelry shops, painting shops and tribal souvenirs. I found a couple of shops on the top floor that sold hand painted scrolls and cloth posters. These art pieces featured landscape paintings alongside Bible verses written in Chinese calligraphy. They also do custom artwork and customers can request for any particular verses and paintings at any size of their desire. These artwork really look good hung on the walls in offices and at home!

Moving on, we headed to another famous walking street near Zhengyi Street. This particular walking street has a lot of street food stalls that are delicious, but also easily found in certain other states like Guilin. Grilled meats are popular here but beware that the cheap 3 skewers of beef for 10rmb here do not offer real beef but are actually duck meat flavored as beef. However, we also came across a shop further on that sold really good REAL beef skewers at 10rmb each. Note the difference in prices!

Dinner was at a small hole-in-the-wall store near Jingbi Square. After dinner, time for more window shopping along TaoBaoJie where it is a single storey underground mall filled with small clothing and apparel stalls along two parallel walkways and this mall is about 800m long. After some shopping and look-see, it was already about 10pm and we walked back to our hostel. Back in the room, time was spent watching some Chinese and Korean variety shows on YouTube, and teaching my friend some simple English via the English subs on the Korean variety shows.

November 2: Green Lake

As this week in Kunming is relaxed week, today was spent touring the neighborhood around my hostel. My hostel is located just one street away from the famous green lake. At about 11, I headed out with my roommate, a girl in her thirties who has been growing up in Kunming and thus is familiar with the place. She started her own business selling premium tea leaves and thus has some time on her hands lately. She had intended to ask her friends to help her take some photographs for her tea packages and I offered to help take it for her today since I had nothing much on anyways.

We went past Green Lake to Yunnan University where we took a walk around the area. The university is an electic mix of old and modern architecture and the autumn foliage gave the place a warm and cosy feeling. There was a slight drizzle so it was not as easy navigating through the university as expected. We left via another gate and found ourselves at the famous Wenhua Street, which is a popular hangout spot for young people since it is filled with eateries, cafes and shops catering to the tastes of the students from the nearby university. We then headed to one of the restaurants nearby for lunch and to my friend's surprise, I had been to another outlet of the same chain of restaurant just yesterday! Lunch at Hong Dou Lou was fuss free and soon we were on our way.

We took a long walk around Green Lake and since it's the onset of winter, there were many seagulls around. We also popped by the Yunnan Military School Museum where I had an hour long summary of the history of Yunnan and its military stories. It was indeed an eye opener and I learnt much about the famous soldiers in the history of Yunnan that contributed to its success.

After the trip to the museum, we headed back to the hostel and rested a while. I then spent the evening playing pool at the lounge with some of the staff of the hostel.

At night, I headed out with the same roommate back to Wenhua Street as it has a night market there every night. It is not extremely big or noisy but there were quite a number of roadside stalls selling clothes, trinkets and street food. My plan was to have some western food but since the only places selling western food there were pubs, we settled for Korean bbq. The food was decent and quite a lot for the price even though I felt the meat was not as fresh as I hoped for. Unfortunately in China, quality meat is still something that is lacking. Even in decent restaurants, pork and beef can be of questionable quality. After dinner, a nice long walk was due in order to better digest the large amounts of meat consumed.

November 1: Famous Stone Forest

Today is my first day in Kunming and I was thinking if I should visit the famous stone forests in Shilin. It is an expensive attraction to visit at 175rmb per entry. In the end, I decided to head there since I'm already in Kunming.

Waking up a little late, I headed out of the hostel at 9am. Walking to the correct bus station was tricky as the bus I wanted to board, K9, only stopped at specific stops in the city. It's the fastest way to Kunming East Bus Station. Along the way, a nice elderly gentleman guided me there, even following me to make sure I reach the correct bus stop. The bus ride from city to Kunming East Bus Station took about 40 minutes and over there, I bought a bus ticket, 34rmb, to Shilin Stone Forest Scenic Area. The bus ride to Shilin Stone Forest Scenic Area took 2 hours.

Upon reaching there, it was drizzling slightly so it was a little harder to move around. Over there, I found out that an annual pass costs 25rmb more at 200rmb and thus, I bought an annual pass. It allows for unlimited entries in a year to the stone forest. In addition, it is necessary to take a shuttle bus in and out from the main entrance to the actual stone forest which is 3km away. That was another 25rmb spent.

Heading in, the forest seemed so daunting and vast. Beautiful grey, white, brown and black chunks of rock protruded out of the ground. There are so many large rocks and navigating through the rocky forest was quite fun. There were a little stairs to climb to reach higher ground, and there was a pavilion for viewing the entire stone forest. The view was pretty good.

As it was raining, I only managed to briefly cover Major Stone Forest and a fair bit of the Minor Stone Forest within the 3.5 hours that I was there. My initial plan was to visit the Naigu Stone Forest which was behind the Major Stone Forest. However that would need a full day there, perhaps even spending a night there to see the place at night! The place is open 24 hours a day.

At about 4pm, I made my way back to the city and by the time I was back in hostel, it was 7pm! Having heard good reviews from the web, I decided to visit Hong Dou Lou for dinner. Ordered a sweet sour fish, claypot lion head Meatball and dongchuan fried potatoes and it turned out to be only 109rmb! The food wasn't fantastic but the portions huge and satisfying.

Back in the hostel at night, spent the night at the lounge bar with my roommates playing billiards and cards. Such a relaxing evening.

October 31: Flight delays and nothingness

Today is such a day of nothingness. Not much was done today other than to run an errand and also to travel from Guilin to Kunming by plane. Initially I had wanted to visit Elephant Hill 象鼻山 but after hearing from my friend, I changed my mind. He told me that it cost 70rmb to enter the place and the only notable attraction is in taking photographs of the famous cliff that has a hole in it, making it resemble an elephant with its trunk.

Instead, I decided to go back to the entrance of Reed Flute Caves, to visit the street stalls there. Yesterday I had bought three pieces of Carbodorum and I was tinking of buying more today since I would not be able to get it in Singapore easily or cheaply and those three pieces will not be enough for my second aquarium that I was planning to have. After taking the 40 minute bus ride there, I visited the different stalls, this time with a very particular intention. I made my intention known to the stall owners that I wanted to buy certain pieces of that rock and I was not willing to pay their prices for it. One stall owner took out a big piece that he had kept hidden and offered to sell it to me for 180rmb. I quoted 70rmb and after some negotiation, we settled at 90rmb. I also bought a small piece for 15rmb. In total, I spent 205rmb for five pieces, across the two days. The good thing was that the stall owner wrapped my newly obtained piece in bubblewrap instead of newspaper!
Back in the hostel, I managed to stuff this huge rock into my backpack and now it is even heavier. Heading to the airport was easy as I took a cab to Aviation hotel and upon alighting, a cab driver offered to fetch me to the airport for 20rmb, in an effort to carpool with two other passengers.

I reached Guilin Airport at 1:15pm and was very early as my flight was supposed to be 4:05pm. However it got delayed to 6pm and that meant waiting at the airport for a miserable five hours!

The flight was uneventful and soon I was in Kunming. Taking the airport shuttle to downtown cost 25rmb and upon alighting, I fought a motorcyclist who was willing to fetch me to my hostel for just 10rmb.

The hostel is tucked away inside a quiet street but it seemed to be quite lively at the bar. I'm sharing the room with 6 other folks, 3 girls and 3 guys. There's a grumpy Caucasian in the room who insisted on sleeping early, having all the windows shut and he chose to change into his pajamas in the room in front of the ladies! What happened to mixed dormitory etiquette?

October 30: Leed Flute Caves

Today was a relaxed day as I had no concrete plans. I decided to head to Leed Flute Caves 芦笛岩 as my friends from Yangshuo had gone there and gave it good reviews. The ride there via public bus took 40 minutes and only cost 1rmb. At the entrance, I bought the ticket which costed 110rmb and was asked to buy the Monorail ticket in order to reach the caves. The Monorail ticket costed 35rmb. Upon reaching the cave entrance, I realised I could have saved the 35rmb and walked to the entrance since it was very nearby, a ten minute walk only.

The limestone caves was lit in typical mainland Chinese technicolor fashion. I slipped away from the guided group at the first possible moment as I wanted to take my photographs leisurely and without people in them. After two hours, I was out of the cave, with quite a fair bit of photographs.

Walking back to the busstop, through Leed Flute Town 芦笛村, I came across a couple of street stalls that sold various rocks and minerals. One of them caught my eye, something the locals termed as rainbow rock 七彩石. A quick search on Google confirmed the name to be Carborundum and it was sold only for usd 10-40 per piece with a palm sized one for about 10usd. A quick haggle and negotiation later, I was the owner of three hand-sized pieces for just 100rmb (15usd) in total.

After the bus back to town, I took a quick nap in the hostel before heading to Diecai Hill 叠彩山. However at the ticketing counter, I found out that going to the peak would take 40 minutes and cost 35rmb. It was cloudy and the sunset didn't seem promising so I gave that a miss. Instead, I took a nice leisurely walk along the Li River and came to Sun Moon Lake 日月湖. Continuing on, I headed into the pedestrian street and roamed the area for another two hours. It was good opportunity for taking in the sights and sounds of the young Guilin crowd.

Back in my hostel after dinner, I met up with a friend that I had earlier roomed in while in both Guilin and Yangshuo earlier. He shared with me of his travels in the past three months, as he had been to almost every part of China, including the Basecamp of Mount Everest, the white palaces of Lhasa, the sunny beaches of Hainan and the snow scenes of Snow Town 雪乡. It was really brave of how he chose to quit his job and embark on this four month trip across all of China.

October 29: Lazing around

Today was a super lazy day. Had wanted to wake up early to catch sunrise at the rooftop of my hostel but I overslept and only woke up at 9:30am. Decided to head out to visit the local wet market and took a stroll there, grabbing some local sugared wheat donut twists along the way. The wet market was just a short 15 minutes walk away. I've always loved visiting the local wet markets of any country or city that I travel to as it gives me a glimpse of the local life there. The wet market in Yangshuo gave me an uncensored and unfiltered peek into their lifestyles.

One side of the market was for vegetables and dried goods while the other side was for vegetables and meat. The meat section was of particular fascination as it was, as usual, filled with piles of meat and innards from various animals such as cow, chicken, duck, fish and pig. However, there was something else that I was not expecting.

Tucked away at the corner was two small shops, each having a couple roasted dogs hanging at the shop front. There were small rusted cages inside the shops, filled with dogs. The dogs are bigger than what you would find in housing apartments as pets, about 70-90cm in length each. All awaiting their fate. I witnessed one of the shopkeepers killing and gutting a dog, before using a propane torch to burn away all the fur.

Nearby, there were at least ten stalls selling livestock, including pigeons and rabbits. Large white rabbits that you normally see in photographs, for sale to be slaughtered and cooked. It was all very real and very normal in this part of the world. One man's pet is another man's dinner.

After visiting the wet market, I strolled along the city for an hour more before returning to my hostel. Once again, I was tempted by a shop selling beautiful handmade ceramic vases and I bought three of them for myself.

The ride from Yangshuo back to Guilin took about 80 minutes and upon alighting, the cold weather in Guilin hit me in the face. The temperature difference between today and yesterday was about 10 degrees Celsius! The trishaw drivers quoted me 15yuan to ferry me to my hostel that was 2km away and I felt rather cheapskate and decided to walk despite the crazy cold. I was dressed in just Tshirt and hiking bermudas.

Back in the Guilin hostel, I totally enjoyed the awesome rainshower that this hostel has provided in each room. Dinner was a mix match of street food from the stalls along the walking street. The hot and spicy barbecue meat a welcome in this cold weather.

Since it was cold outside, spending the evening in the room reading a book and eating the hot street food was particularly comforting. Could definitely use more of such cosy nights.

October 28: Beautiful Yangshuo

Today morning was a lazy one as I decided to skip catching Sunrise and snoozed in bed till 9am. After washing up, my two friends and I headed out to grab some breakfast together. Finally I managed to satisfy my craving for fried dough fritters 油条 and Soya bean milk 豆浆. I also had some plain porridge to fill me up.

We planned to explore the countryside today on bicycle but after breakfast, we were tempted to use electric scooters 点单车 instead. Upon checking the prices, we found out that a good mountain bike cost 30-50rmb to rent for a day while a electric scooter cost 35rmb to rent a day. Obviously we went for the electric scooters. After having driven one for an hour yesterday, I was craving for more. It was a struggle last night on deciding if I should go for a bicycle since I thought I would be alone today. However, the choice was made easily this morning at the shop.

Since I knew the way to the scenic area 十里画廊, I led the way. With me being the scooting noob of the pack, it was really nice that the two guys were patient with me. We headed to moon mountain and wanted to go via Longtan ancient village to Yulong River but the path was no longer available and we had to backtrack and take another path down.

A while later, we made the decision to ride on the hiking path instead of the small road and it was a good idea since it brought us so much nearer to the river and we could stop anytime to take photographs. The whole ride was an adventure for me since it was the second time I drove a scooter, the first being yesterday. After a while, I've gotten the hang of maintain the speed at slow speeds, which was tricky at first. We had to traverse across some dirt roads and rocky paths for almost an hour and it was obviously better suited for hikers and mountain bikes. The bumpiness and up down slopes was quite exciting since it meant that I had to control my scooter's balance and speed even better.

We were constantly rewarded with scenic views and by the time we reached dashizhai Village 大石寨, it was already 4pm. We had been riding since 11am. I then led us back to Yangshuo via Chaoyang Village 朝阳村 and Jima Village 驥马村, before entering Yangshuo itself.

The five hours riding the scooter along the countryside was such an exciting experience, coupled with one of the best sceneries I've ever seen in my life. The next time I return to Yangshuo, I'll surely go scooting along the riverside again!

Back in Yangshuo, one of my friends had to leave while the other wanted to rest in the hostel. I rested a while, then headed out for dinner on my own. I decided to have it at the same restaurant as the previous night, trying some other local delights instead. After dinner, I had a leisurely walk around the waking streets xijie 西街 and diecuijie 叠翠街 before heading back to the hostel to rest in the room.

October 27: Yangshuo Li River Cruise

Today started pretty early with me having to be at the entrance of the hostel at 6:45am to wait for my bus to the pier. Turns out the bus only arrived at 7:40 to pick me up. The ride to the pier took an hour and the tour guide explained the upcoming bamboo raft trip to us. On the bus, I found out that the 230rmb I had paid was only for the boat ride to Nine Horses Mountain 九马画山 and if I wanted the complete ride to XingPing Pier 兴坪码头, I would need to top up another 98rmb. Being on the way there already, I decided that I might as well fork out the entra bit to get the complete package.

Upon reaching YangDi Pier 杨堤码头, I was paired up with a group of three other tourists, two ladies and a guy, who were also heading to the same destination. Each bamboo takes four passengers and it is actually more of a PVC pipe boat than a bamboo boat. We had a boat captain who asked if we wanted to tip him for extra services, namely a running commentary and pitstops along the way to take photographs from the shores. Since it was just 10rmb per person, we agreed. And my generous companions offered to pay for my share. The ride along the river was slow but really peaceful. The bright sunshine, scattered clouds and towering karst features made the ride so scenic and peaceful. It was something I could never get tired of. Along the way, I offered to take photographs of my companions and email them the photographs once I'm in Singapore.

The ride took about two and a half hours and when we reached the end, we had to walk through XingPing old street before taking a bus to YangShuo. My boating companions graciously invited me to join them for the afternoon since I had no plans for the day and I accepted. They had wanted to ride to the surrounding areas to check out the views. When they went for lunch, I left their company to check into my hostel and deposit some of my belongings in my room. At a whim, I decided to have KFC since there weren't many shops open at noon that seemed decent or clean enough. After lunch, I went over to join my three new friends and it turns out that they had already rented two electric scooters. Not the skatescooter kind that you find in Singapore, but full fledged scooters that had electric motors instead of petrol ones. The two older ones rode on one scooter while I rode pillion with the youngest of the group. Electric scooters are really common in China, just as in Taiwan, and they have a mileage of about 50km on a single charge.

We rode out of town and headed towards Ten Li Scenic Spot 十里画廊. However we could not find the place and went to Longtan Ancient Village 龙潭古寨 instead. The place had a small lake with a sculpted white dragon in the middle and surrounded by a ton of wilted lotus leaves. Quite an dismal sight. Past the lake, we entered the ancient village where it was a ton of old architecture married with modern fixtures such as electrical usage meters, painted walls, torn maps of the place. It would have been nicer if it was left in its original state, but that would not have withstood the invasive impact that domestic tourism has in the attractions in China.

On the way back from the ancient village, we passed by the YuLong River 遇龙河. Since it was sunset soon, we stayed there for a while as I took some long exposures of the sunset. It was the first proper sunset I've seen ever since I came to China. It was obscured by smog in Beijing and by fog in Huangshan and Zhangjiajie. The bright orange sky behind the silhouette of the Karst peaks was really amazing and I look forward to catching even better ones tomorrow evening.

Back in the town, I said goodbye to my three new friends as we parted ways since they were returning to Guilin tonight. I met up with my two friends that I made in the Guilin hostel, who came to Yangshuo today on their own too, and we had dinner in one of the many restaurants along the waking street 西街. As there was three of us, we could try the local speciality, spicy beer-cooked fish 啤酒鱼. There was no beer taste or alcohol taste and the fish dish tasted more like Assam fish.

Yangshuo has quite a vibrant nightlife as the walking street becomes very crowded at night and the stalls all come to life. There are quite a number of pubs and bars, as well as a variety of local food and souvenir shops. There is also a side alley dedicated to western restaurants such as German, Italian and French food, Chinese standards of course.

October 26: Day of Major Mess

Today started off pretty smooth. I woke up early and went to visit Bao Feng Lake. I was still contemplating last night on whether I should visit this touristy place since it was not cheap at 85rmb and the entire place is only worth about 2hours. Heading there this morning, there was quite a fair bit of fog and the crowd was already there. Past the entrance, it was a 15 minute walk to the pier where I had to wait 20 minutes for the next boat.

I was pretty fortunate to be on a board that was only 1/4 filled and the tour guide spoke rather softly too. The 20 minute boat ride took me along the lake to different parts, all photogenic. Even though the fog made the photographs not as clear and the waters were also not as blue due to the overcast sky, the fog did gave the place a mythical feel.

After the boat ride was a walk back to the entrance, in which I passed by a giant salamander pond where they kept two giant salamanders as pets. However the housing conditions were not as ideal. Eventually I headed back to my hostel and the entire outing took slightly more than two hours.

Back at the hostel, I met a new friend, an Australian named Jack who has been cycling and backpacking in China for the past two months before heading to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in November. It's really quite amazing to interact and chat with these backpackers in real life and hear of their stories.

Eventually, I made my way to Zhangjiajie Airport and that's when a massive mess was realized. Turns out that I booked my guilin flight for 27 Oct instead of today and my Kunming flight for 31 Oct instead of 30 Oct. I had to quickly buy a new ticket for today and rush to the plane. And for my itinerary, I will book and spend one more night in yangshuo. But this delay by a day resulted in me having to miss going to Stone Forest and YuanYang Rice Terraces in kunming, which is such a bummer. Now I have two spare days in kunming for me to fill. Time to look for other affordable places to visit. Plus the new ticket for guilin costed me 750rmb in CASH!

The flight to guilin was via OKAY Airlines and turns out they only use turboprops for their planes. This means their planes are those with giant propellers and not the modern engines that we are used to seeing. This fact meant that the ride felt like I was sitting on a spinning washing machine for 1h 40mins.  Eventually, I was in Guilin and the airport express bus took me downtown where I had to hail a random rickshaw driver to send me to my hostel. The driver stopped halfway and insisted that we walk to my destination!

Turns out that Guilin Central Hostel is a hidden gem in this touristy place. The hostel costs 45rmb for a bed per night and the rooms are really clean with free WiFi, two power sockets beside each bed and an awesomely clean toilet with RAIN SHOWER!! If only other hostels emulate them! It's the only accommodation with toilets that I've dared to step in barefooted.

After settling down, I headed out and the main walking street with all the young folks was just 3 minutes away. Decided to splurge a bit to sooth my disappointment with myself on the flight booking mistakes. A bowl of Japanese Chicken Curry Don, a plate of Beijing pork dumplings and a bowl of cold Mango sago cost just 48rmb! Took my time to slowly enjoy my food while reading an ebook. Decided not to explore the place tonight since tomorrow I need to be awake at 6am. Plus I will be back in this hostel after two nights in Yangshuo. The weather in Guilin is warm, just like Singapore.

October 25: Zhangjiajie Golden Whip Brook

After a cold and restless sleep at the terrible hostel, I awoke at 6:45am and headed out with my guide to the bus stop at the 3-way intersection 三叉路口 to catch the free tourist bus to TianCi Mountain. The first bus only starts at 7:30am so about 20 minutes was spent waiting around in the cold morning breeze. Reaching the viewing ledge at TianCi Mountain, there was fog everywhere. I kept praying for the fog to disperse and eventually I came to the conclusion that it will disperse at God's timing, not mine. But I did pray and ask God to allow me to see the beautiful rock pillars before I leave Zhangjiajie. The fog did disperse a little but not much was visible. I also came across an Italian couple, Maria and Giovanni, that joined me for the entire day.

Soon later I decided to grab brunch at the nearby Macdonalds, as a consolation for the lousy accommodations and views. As I stepped into the fast food restaurant, it started to rain heavily. The familiar burgers and hot coffee was so welcomed, especially after a cold night and having only local Chinese foods or packed biscuits for meals.

Once the rain ceased, I asked the guide to bring me to check out the places we visited yesterday in Yangjiajie since it was too foggy yesterday for anything to be seen. While waiting for the bus, there was a young lady tour guide from Hunan who was waiting with her small tour group for the bus. She could speak a little English so we chatted in a mix of English and Mandarin. My tour guide seemed kind of jealous that she chatted with me and kept trying to give me bad reports of young female non-"zhangjiajie local" tour guides, telling me that they all are scammers and that they are prostitutes or morally wayward.

By the time the tourist bus reached the Yangjiajie area, the fog had lightened up a little. About an hour of walking later, the fog started to lift and the beautiful geological formations appeared before my eyes. Amidst the pushing and shoving with the domestic tourists, we managed to visit all the major scenic viewpoints before heading to the path that led down the mountain.

Instead of taking the Cableway or BaiLong glass elevator 百龙天梯 down the mountain, I wanted to walk down the mountain to the famous Golden Whip Stream 金鞭溪 and follow the stream to the mountain entrance. The route down the stream took longer than expected and all the walking down took about 3 hours. However the initial part of the route gave me a few opportunities to view the zhangjiajie rock formations in their amazing grandeur and in peace without the domestic tourists around. There was even a group of photographers on a photography trip there to take photographs of the cloud-covered peaks in view.

The walk down was long but easy, as the steps were wide and the weather was good. In comparison to HuangShan, it was so much more comfortable to walk here. At the bottom of the ravine, there was a well-established walking path that led to the entrance. Following that took another 2 hours and by the time we were nearing the entrance, the sun had set and it was dark. Thankfully I had brought a good torch along to illuminate the path. By the time the entrance was seen, it was already 7pm and the only option back to my hostel in Wulingyuan was via private car charter.

Dinner was quickly settled in my hostel and I had the privilege of enjoying the entire 3-bed bunk room to myself as the hostel didn't have much occupants today.

October 24: Zhangjiajie Scenic Area

Today started a little later as I decided to wake up only at 7am. As I would be returning to the same hostel tomorrow night, I left my backpack in the hostel and only went out with my waistpack and camera gear. Hailed a taxi and off I went to Zhangjiajie Scenic Area Ticketing Entrance. When I was there, i was accosted by quite a few guides and as I spoke to one of them, I was convinced that I should hire him. His rates was only 100rmb per day and he was a native that grew up in the mountains. As an officially licensed guide, he would be reliable.

After getting my ticket that costed 248rmb (so expensive!!), we headed in and discussed my route for the two days. We would explore the entire mountain top today and head down to the Golden Whip River trail tomorrow. As I found out, there are free tourist buses plying the mountain top and it was much easier getting around than expected. The tour guide made moving around easy as he was extremely familiar with the area and would even bark at other tourists when they blocked up the area.

Taking a tourist bus from the entrance, we headed to the lower station of the Yangjiajie Cableway. The ride up took about 7 minutes and costed 76rmb. My guide explained to me how the local government supported the natives by restricting guides and ticket seller jobs to the natives. Going up the Cableway, the view was pretty awesome. However as we reached the top, fog started to envelop the entire mountain top.

As we walked from viewpoint to viewpoint, all we could see was fog. It was rather disappointing as I was hoping to catch the beautiful geological formations that Zhangjiajie is famous for. Lunch was had at a local restaurant and it was not cheap at all. However I ate as much as I could so that I could skip dinner since there's not many places with decent food on the mountain top.

Continuing on, we went from Yangjiajie to Tianzi Mountain. The afternoon was spent camping at a local shop. My guide chatted with one of the locals there while I was observing an ongoing mahjong by a few other locals. I reckon I took more photographs of spiders and their webs than of the geological formations in the entire scenic area. Eventually, we headed to my hostel.

Turns out the hostel is really crap. There was no insulation or heating so the room is as cold as outside, just without wind. The bed had insects about and the TV was down. It's 7pm and I'm in the room till tomorrow. I offered to share the room and the queen sized bed with my tour guide as the lousy hostel owner had no bed for him. Usually for tour guides, the locals will offer them a bed for free or at an extremely cheap rate when they are accompanying their clients.

I'm really thankful for this guide as we chat quite well and easily. As we spent time together today, he shared with me about his family and his life in Zhangjiajie and we also talked about various topics such as security, lifestyle and even education of our two countries.

Can't wait to get out of this terrible hostel room tomorrow morning. What a disappointment. I booked for two nights here but they somehow only have my booking for tomorrow night, which I had forfeited as I had moved forward my zhangjiajie scenic area visit earlier by one day. Once I'm back in Singapore, a complaint awaited agoda.com, together with a scathing review for this hostel.

October 23: Train Ride To Zhangjiajie

Since 11:13pm last night, I was on a sleeper train to Zhangjiajie. In fact, it was two sleeper trains. Huangshan to Zhuzhou and Zhuzhou to Zhangjiajie. For both, I booked a hard sleeper for myself, which was a bed on a 6-bunk cabin. No doors, no curtains, no privacy. It was exactly the same as how I had taken a sleeper train many years back when I was Secondary 3 in China on an Overseas Community Involvement Programme.

Being in an open cabin has its perks too. You could easily look into other cabins and see what others are doing. It's easier to share space as those on the lowest bunks allowed others to sit on their bed. I was given the highest bunk, which was not meant to sit in as it was quite short in vertical space. Each bed was given a pillow and a blanket, both rather clean and comfortable. Soon, I was sound asleep, like everyone else on board.

Having brought snacks along, my meals were easily settled on the train. Time was easily passed reading e-books, looking at the scenery outside or chatting with the folks in the cabin. My cabin had a few friendly locals who were interested in how Singapore is like. Even though at times we could not understand each other due to their strong localized slang, conversations were pretty easy as long as they kept to the standard Chinese 普通话.

As we neared Zhangjiajie, one of the friendly locals gave me advice on how to reach Wulingyuan, where my hostel is. It is about an hour away and he adviced me to take a public bus instead of the taxi since the time taken is about the same but the taxi costing almost 7 times more. He even walked me to the bus station and gave me his number so that I could contact him if I needed help. Turns out he's an officer with the police force 公安 for the past 30 years!

The bus that led to Wulingyuan was a small and nondescript minibus. It took almost an hour, with the fare being only 14yuan. Upon alighting at the town center, there was a motorcycle driver looking for business. He offered to drive me to my hostel and off we went! It was a cold ride as the temperature in the town was about 12degC and it was already sundown and there was a slight drizzle. I was only in my drifit t-shirt and hiking pants, with the wind blowing right at me while I was riding pillion and wearing my huge backpack and holding my camera. What an experience! Dangerous but an eye opening experience nonetheless. He charged me only 1rmb for the ride but I decided to give him 10rmb instead as a tip for him.

Registering myself at the hostel took a while as the hostel owner was not familiar with English and typing my name into the system, a procedure for all tourists, took almost 20 minutes as he tried to press the correct keys on the keyboard. Eventually, I got my room key and paid for my room.

After putting my backpack beside my bed, it was time to explore the nearby street that was still bustling with life. There was a slight drizzle but I have become used to it already. Dinner was settled at a nearby restaurant and it turned out to be pretty good, though at a slightly pricier rate. Perhaps it's expensive as the portions were all not meant for one person but perhaps two to three to share.  A simple order of a plate of Braised pork belly and a plate of stir fried shredded potatoes, together with rice, costed 85rmb (s$18).

Back at the hostel room, with a map of the scenic area spread out, my roommate explained to me how best to visit the place. He even helped me call my hostel in the scenic area to find out the directions to it! God has really been sending angels along my way to guide me and help me!