20100620 张家界

Though it's just a 4-star hotel, it's better than the 5-star hotel in Changsha.

The uniqueness of this cable car is, the station is in the town!

You'd have a view of the rooftops before you come to the hilly area.

We took the cable car to reach the top of the mountain. Had a walk in the mist-shrouded mountain. Then, took a bus to 天门洞. It is just a 30-min bus ride. But, there're 99 corners. Papa Peh nearly vomitted the day before. So, he gave up seeing this formidable natural gaping mountain hole.

Me, at the foot of the 999 staircase.

Me, at the n-th step.

Me, again, at the m-th step.

Me, again, again, at the p-th step.
(actually, I'm panting and grasping for air, so, just pretend to stop and snap photos)

Finally, me, at the 999-th step

I was going down while tourmates were still going up

What a waste that Papa Peh missed this marvellous scenery. He was waiting for us at the cable car station.

Lunch time.

After lunch, the tour guide kept bugging us to take up the extra itinerary, in which we had to pay RMB 180 for the so-called 2 extra destinations. Well, we budged in and our wallets became thinner.

4 beautiful girls greeted as at the 土家族 village.

Do they look alike?

He is a very adorable tourmate, from Alor Setar. As he doesn't know my name, he called me 小宝贝. In return, I called him 老可爱. Since I'm the youngest and Christina is the 2nd youngest, I refer to Christina as 大宝贝.

At first, I was attracted by the chilly.

On 2nd look, the embroidery is the real attraction. The word "福" is depicted by a pair of dancing man and woman. Man on the left, woman on the right.

Now, we came to the wedding place.

There was a traditional custom that the marrying girl has to cry before and when she gets married. She has to cry for a couple of days. Some even cried for a month!

He was demonstrating knives juggling. I was so scared becoz I was sitting in the first row.

Wow... how I wish I can carry this back home.

Bad English in China. They call an "exit" "export".

Hm... probably Mr Book should kidnap me with this 轿子?

I've never seen this machine before.

After visiting the village of the minority tribe, we left Zhangjiajie for 凤凰城. There was no proper highway connecting these 2 places. So, the 200 km journey was a torture to the butts. Certain parts of the journey was not even on tarred roads but on rocky and sandy country roads. Couldn't sleep in the bus at all becoz the driver was honking all the way down to FengHuangCheng and he kept swerving to the right and left.

Had a break amid the gruelling bumpy bus ride.

Since we detoured to the village of the minority tribe, we reached FengHuangCheng very late and had a late dinner at 9pm. Due to this matter, our tour guide was complained by our Msian tour leader.

Here's the story: Our Chinese handsome tour guide had wanted to earn extra pocket money, so he kept bugging us to pay extra to visit the extra destinations. But, while we were at the 天门洞, he kept shooing us to go back to the bus when we were snapping photos and enjoying cups of hot tea while drinking in the fresh mountain air. He was shouting at our Msian tour leader, asking her to get everyone in the bus. Due to the extra visit to the village, our dinner time was delayed to 9pm. The restaurant was closing and the 13 of us had to squeeze ourselves into a 10-seat dining table. Since we're the loyal customers of the tour agency, our Msian tour leader called up the China tour agency, complaining this young tour guide.

Wow... and when we returned to Changsha next day, the CEO of the China tour agency joined us for dinner. The middle-aged lady CEO, the young tour guide and our Msian tour leader were seated at a table next to us. I couldn't hear their discussions. But after dinner, the young tour guide asked us to sign a petition saying that we paid for the extra itinerary on a voluntary basis.