When I woke up in the morning, after leaving Chengdu the previous afternoon, it turned out the train I was in was behind schedule. However, this turned out to be in my favor, as I was originally destined to arrive in Huaihua, my transfer station, at six in the morning. This delay meant I could start the day well rested.
When I got to Huaihua, an army of taxi and scooter drivers bombardede with generous offers to take me to the bus terminal. Said bus terminal however was only 700 meters down the road, so I trusted my ability to find it myself.
Fenghuang
The hour long busride took me through some beautiful karst mountain landscapes. I arrived in Fenghuang, which was advertised as an old river village. I made my way through some narrow alleys and found my hostel. I got a free room upgrade on account of being the only person staying in the dorm those nights!
While Fenghuang is certainly beautiful, the authenticity is lost, as every builiding has been turned into a souvenir shop or a restaurant. At night, neon lighting and loud dance music fills the streets as the clubs come to live. On my second day here I took a bus out of town, as it had very little to offer, and visited some nearby caves.
Zhangjiajje
I left Fenghuang with another bus ride, this one 3 hours long, and arrived in Wulingyuan. Wulingyuan is a town on the edge of the Zhangjiajie national park. This park is known for its incredible pillar mountains, which have inspired the floating mountains in the movie Avatar. The only park ticket available is valid for 4 days (and priced accordingly), and so I spent multiple days exploring the park (it's big enough!).
Unfortunately, on the last day it started raining. This made me and a fellow traveller decide to relocate to the actual city of Zhangjiajie in the morning rather than in the afternoon. The reason for this relocation is that the trainstation is located in the city, and I had to catch a train early the next morning. When we got off at the bus station, through some miracle we met with Liam, whom I met in Xi'an 2 weeks earlier! Had my bus arrived a minute earlier or later, we would have completely missed each other! Once again it turns out the world is a small place.
Yangshuo
The next day I left for Yangshuo, my final destination in China. The travel included taking a train, a metro, two more trains and finally a bus. Needless to say I arrived in Yangshuo quite worn out. I discovered I shared my room with two Canadians I met earlier in Wuilingyuan! You'd think in a country with over a billion people you wouldn't be running into the same ones all the time, but experience proves otherwise.
The next day, I had a mission. One of the (other) people I met in Wulingyuan just came from Yangshuo told me about a Dutch hotel owner who was looking for a helping hand in the summer. I didn't set out to travel the world in order to hunt for a job, but I wouldn't mind settling down for a bit either. Besides, the summer months are less ideal for travelling through Asia (hot and humid), so this is a nice oppurtunity to sit those out. Through some google-fu and asking around, I managed to find the place and its owner. We had a good talk, and if all goes well I'll be back here in July.
The rest of the time in Yangshuo was spend biking around and exploring the environment. And naturally, the evenings were spent at rooftop bars, drinking cheap chinese beers!
