We had one night in Zhangjiajie and the next day visited Tianmen Mountain. This was the start of our 3 day visit to the Zhangjiajie National Park featuring towering sandstone pinnacles and spectacular scenery. This is where the scenery for the movie Avatar was filmed.
We stayed in the Zhangjiajie Niu Guanjia Modern Inn, a very nice hotel close to the starting point for the tour of Tianmen Mountain.
We had tickets for the tour of Tianmen Mountain the next morning. It started with a bus ride to the park gates where we bought a four day ticket. They took a scan of our fingerprint so if the ticket was lost or stolen it couldn’t be used by anyone else. Every day that we entered the park we needed the ticket plus have our fingerprint read.
Once inside the gates we boarded buses for the ride to the base of the “Gateway to Heaven” seen in the top left of the above picture.What a ride!!! Steep winding roads and buses of tourists going and coming.
It is a wonder how the buses could pass those coming in the opposite direction.
The Gateway to Heaven
The stairs up to the Gateway to Heaven were closed because there was ice on the stairs – see the staff on the stairs sweeping it off. We used the Transmountain Escalators to get to the top of the cave.
The Transmountain Escalator was a series of long escalators 510 meters long, climbing 200 meters through a tunnel in the mountain to the top. Very impressive.
From the top of the mountain we walked around to the glass walkway. Being so high up on the cliff with an enormous drop down the side of the mountain underneath the glass, it is very hard and scary to take your first step onto the glass.
Monkeys Everywhere
This was the first monkey we saw. During the next 3 days in the park we saw them everywhere, from the top of the mountains to the valleys below.
The world’s longest Cable Car
Our trip down from the top of the mountain was on the Zhangjiajie Cable Car, purported to be the longest in the world. It runs from the top of Mount Tianmen, right over the winding bus road into the centre of Zhangjiajie city, a short walk back to our hotel.
Wow those winding roads! Hope you didn’t get carsick! And those glass floor paths… who’s idea was it to build them! 😬 x