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Wednesday July 1, 2009

Wonders of Wulingyuan

ZIYING'S BRUSH


Commonly referred to by its main attraction Zhangjiajie, the Wulingyuan Scenic Area stuns visitors with its vastness and its forests of soaring stone columns.

MENTION the name Hunan and chances are most Malaysians will give you a blank stare or think you are referring to Henan, home of the Shaolin Temple and familiar-sounding ancient capitals like Luoyang and Kaifeng.

Well-laid out walkways take visitors through the most scenic areas of Zhangjiajie.

That Hunan is confused with the better-known Henan is common enough even in the international media but I was totally taken aback when a friend said: “Have a good trip to Yunnan!”

Well, Hunan is neither Yunnan nor Henan. The three provinces are not even near each other. Hunan lies just south of the Yangtze’s middle reaches while most of Henan is south of the Yellow River, and Yunnan is way off in the south-western corner of China bordering Myanmar and Vietnam.

My earliest contact with Hunan was through its delectable smoked ham, a big hit with Chinese food-lovers in the United States years ago when I was at university. The province’s hot, spicy cuisine, some say, influences the local temperament so it is perhaps no surprise that Mao Zedong and several other well-known revolutionaries were Hunanese, a fact that people in China rarely fail to mention.

In character with the province’s unconventional leanings, its television station is also considered rather revolutionary, having created the wildly successful Supergirl television singing contest (modelled after shows like American Idol), as well as the popular Ugly Wudi TV series (China’s Ugly Betty), currently aired in Malaysia.

Though landlocked Hunan itself may draw a blank, the magnificent Wulingyuan Scenic Area roughly 400km to the north-west of the provincial capital Changsha is somewhat better known as it was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1992 and a Unesco Geopark in 2004.

The most salient feature of Wulingyuan is its dizzying collection of over 3,000 sandstone pillars and towers. Rising some 200m to 300m from the gullies, they resemble forests of needles among grotesquely shaped peaks and soaring mesas, many with caverns and natural “sky” bridges spanning the cliffs.

Awesome: (clockwise from top) Tianzishan is a living landscape painting of spectacular vistas.

Wulingyuan’s star attraction is none other than Zhangjiajie, China’s first National Forest Park, and decidedly among the most spectacular sights in the country. In fact, most people simply say “Zhangjiajie” when talking about Wulingyuan.

At the heart of the National Forest Park is a lift that ascends 326m up a vertical cliff. In just under two minutes the Bailong Elevator which began service in 2002 delivers visitors to a mountain top overlooking majestic rock columns emerging from a gorge formed by stately crags and broad mesas.

Equally stunning are the views at Wulingyuan’s 1,256m Tianzishan (Emperor Mountain) whose other worldly panoramas of sandstone pillars amidst shifting mists are straight out of a Chinese landscape painting.

There the towers are narrower and spikier with some so thin they resemble pencils; at one particularly breathtaking spot they are aptly labelled “imperial brushes”.

At the very beginning of our visit to Wulingyuan, our guide Likun cautioned: “Many of the rock formations here are said to resemble humans, fairies, animals or objects, but 70% of the perception depends on your imagination.”

Unfortunately even imagination had its limits the day we took a cable car up to Huangshizhai, reputedly the most fabulous of Zhangjiajie’s scenic spots. Cloaked in heavy mist the mountain refused to reveal its treasures and while Likun desperately tried to describe what we were supposed to see, it began to drizzle and a wet fog closed in, reducing visibility to a few metres. We hurried down the mountain and all I remember of the place is a monkey sitting on a fence.

Cable cars take visitors through the scenic areas of Wulingyuan.

Besides its karst formations and fauna, Wulingyuan is home to a variety of herbs and rare plants, including the mysterious lobster flower or longxiahua that apparently can change colour up to five times a day.

I spotted a longxiahua easily enough along the banks of the Golden Whip Stream (Jinbianxi) in the National Forest Park. It had a large single petal shaped like a spear head that curved upwards like a lobster tail. Purplish black in colour and nestled next to a boulder, it was effectively camouflaged against the dry leaves and greyish-brown soil.

In addition to Zhangjiajie National Forest Park and Tianzishan, Wulingyuan comprises Suoxiyu and the recently added Yangjiajie which has a residence that once temporarily sheltered the famous Yang family warriors of the northern Song period.

The Unesco site covers several hundred square kilometres and is so vast that unless one takes time to study the map, it is easy to lose one’s bearings. Cable cars convey visitors to one mountain after another and there is a train that runs along the Shilihualang scenic area with views of the peaks and pillars from ground level.

People sometimes ask: “How does Zhangjiajie compare with Huangshan?” My first rule of travel is to never compare. Huangshan has an elegant, poetic beauty without equal.

Zhangjiajie and its sister sites possess a magnificence that recalls the Grand Canyon. Both are humbling reminders that nature reigns supreme.

■ Ziying can be reached at ziyingster@gmail. com.

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