A Trip to Hunan Zhangjiajie Day 1 & Day 2

We left home around 2pm on 11 January 2019 where Zuyi a newly licensed driver took us to Setiawangsa LRT to connect our journey to KLIA 2 via ERL from KL Sentral Station. The flight was full of Mainland Chinese visitors going back to their home land after visiting Malaysia.

Arrived safely at Changsha Huanghua International Airport. There wasn't many foreigners visiting Changsha hence it was quite fast to clear the immigration and custom check points. Changsha is synonymous with Chairman Mao Tze Tong as it was his hometown with a population of 7.5 million currently.

We were received by our Tour leader and guide, Leo & Little Duck and they will be with us for the next 8 days in Hunan. It was near midnight by the time we checked into Grand Mercure Hotel downtown Changsha. The weather was cold and raining.

Day 2 looking out from the window of our 4 stars hotel and ready to see Hunan and her surroundings.

The breakfast at Spices Grand Mercure was good with a reasonably wide spread to savour. All tummies well filled and were all ready to roll.

The temperature was 1°C with slight intermittent rain. The yellow bus will be our main transport for the entire tour and the first destination is Zhangjiajie. The traffic on the highway to Zhangjiajie is pretty heavy but moving and the time taken was approximately 5 hours.

2 toilet breaks in between the journey with a bit of Chinese titbit to try.

We arrived at Zhangjiajie about 2pm and our late lunch was at Happy Meal Restaurant. It was the start of our indulgent of Hunan cuisine and all were excited with it.

In a shutter bus to our first place of visit and that was Baofeng Lake. Also known as Baofeng Hu  宝峰湖 is a fresh water lake in the Wulingyuan Scenic Area located on the south of Suoxiyu Village, Wulinyuan District, Zhangjiajie city, Hunan Province.  

This time around it was a low season and getting to the entrances of visit was relax and stress-less.

Baofeng Lake is in a basin created by the terrain in the middle of the mountainous area. Green trees and stone peaks of various shapes surrounding the lake.

At the lake we took a boat ride for 30 minutes. It is a leisure experience seeing the clear water, reflection of the marvelous stone peaks and green trees. And being entertained by the local minority people singing their traditional songs as we passed by them.

One for the album.

Baofeng Hu was formed by chance many years ago which was just actually a gorge and the local people then built a reservoir within the rocks with the intention to store water for irrigation. 

The local people never knew that their work has magically turned out to be a beautiful lake and it was made popular through a well known TV series "A Journey to the West".

After checking into Pullman Hotel Zhangjiajie and we went for our dinner at Xiangyuan Restaurant located at Tianzi Road.

The dinner was of a cuisine by the minority people and Barry had a chance to drink their wine with the hostesses accompanied with their folk music. It was indeed the highlight of the dinner. That was amazing Day 2.