Tag Archives: zhangjiajie

The Monkeys of Zhangjiajie

Those who fear monkeys beware! Zhangjiajie National Forest Park in China is infested with macaques. Admittedly, these monkeys look cute and harmless, and indeed upon seeing them, most tourists are quick to whip out their cameras. But the macaques are aggressive, and not afraid of humans.

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Zhangjiajie National Forest Park

Zhangjiajie National Forest Park (湖南张家界国家森林公园) is my favorite place in China (so far). The park is full of sky-high stone pillars, some of which soar over 1000 meters above the forest floor. Supposedly, these natural formations inspired James Cameron to create the “Hallelujah Floating Mountains” for his movie Avatar. Never one to turn down free publicity, Chinese officials renamed one of the pillars “Avatar Hallelujah Mountain” (阿凡达-哈利路亚山).

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Tianmen Mountain, a Glass-Shattering Experience?

Tianmen (天门山) is a famous mountain, located near Zhangjiajie City in China's Hunan Province. Before we were allowed to walk on its glass walkway, we had to put red slippers on over our shoes. Unfortunately, I couldn't stretch the tiny slippers over my hiking boots. Two months before this, a similar glass bridge on Yuntai Mountain (云台山) cracked shortly after opening. Officials claimed that even though the glass was cracked, it “will not pose threat to safety.”

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AtW Podcast, Episode 16: Ryan Campeau

My guest this week is Ryan Campeau. We sat on my balcony in Beijing for a lengthy discussion about travel, specifically in China, Europe, and the good old US of A. Along the way, we did quite a bit of story-telling.

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AtW Podcast, Episode 8: Carson Leong

Carson Leong is my guest for this episode of the podcast. Carson and I met on top of 黄山 (Huang Shan, or Yellow Mountain) in central China. He and his girlfriend had been hiking around the park, and they were staying in the same hostel as me. We hit it off when we learned that we both had the same camera. We even did a short hike together, posing in each others' pictures for dramatic effect.

Carson currently lives in Hong Kong, so when I made my way to his city, we met again for some hiking and chatting about travel. On a Saturday night in a lively park in the middle of the city, we spontaneously sat down to record one of our conversations.

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AtW Podcast, Episode 6: Roni Rodrigues

I met Roni Rodrigues and his wife Hester on top of Zhangjiajie National Park in southern China. Still at the beginning of an open-ended trip around the world, he and his wife Hester were busy filming hour upon hour of footage with their quadcopter drone. I sat down with Roni outside of his hotel in the famous town of Yangshuo to record this podcast. Roni was an inspirational character who always kept a positive attitude about the world.

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