I got up early and caught the first bus up through Zhangjaijie National Park. The road ahead of us was empty as we wound through the mountains and past the uniquely beautiful and intriguing Sou Xi Lake. Our bus pulled up to a stop in front of the Bailong elevator and I stepped down into a atmosphere of trees and surrounding cliffs with drifting fog... excellent photo opportunities. What I did not anticipate was something I have never seen anywhere else in all my travels. Behind us another bus stopped, packed completely full of Chinese tourists, escorted by a megaphone toting tour guide, who raised the electric amplifier to her mouth and started shouting instructions and information to her group, the sound disrupting the still, quiet morning. Directly behind that was another bus full of tourists with another megaphone toting tour guide, probably blaring out all the exact same things that the first guide was shouting, the two megaphones now clashing together into one chaotic disturbance. Directly behind that was yet another bus group with yet another megaphone. It was one bus after another, nonstop all day. Obviously, China's concept of a "National Forest Park" was different from anything I had ever seen.

I walked around and took some photographs before catching the elevator to the top of the mountain, in retrospect a mistake. I could have been one of the first on the mountain and stayed ahead of the crowd (at least until I stopped to look at the scenery or capture a beautiful image.) The "trail" was not what I expected. It was neatly inlaid with brick and at least a meter wide, quite urban for a national park. That should have made it easy to get from one overlook to another. But despite its width and refinement, it was packed shoulder to shoulder with tourists so that it was difficult to walk, and all of them led by tour guides, multiple megaphones barking out against each other in total auditory chaos. Had I known it was going to be like this, I would never have come here. Though it was extremely beautiful, this was not my kind of place, not the experience I was looking for.

But Zhangjaijie is a large park with lots to explore. The trick is to find "the road less traveled." Everyone in China wants to ride up the elevator the see the most advertised spots, and to be photographed along side of the statue of Neytiri, the blue-skinned Na'vi princess from the movie "Avatar". But I found (as pictured above) this quiet mountain on the south side of the park. The reason it was so quiet was because there was no elevator or tram, the only way to get there was to hike up some very steep terrain. I imagine most of those Chinese people whom I was bumping shoulders with on the other mountain were city folk who had no desire to climb 2,000 feet with their own legs. I spent the entire evening climbing up, circling the top, taking photographs, and descending back to the bottom, and only encountered a half a dozen other people. Perhaps Zhangjaijie was the extreme, but any time I go to a national park, or any other international attraction, I will  always remmeber to schedule time for "the road less traveled."

(Note: I visited Zhangjaijie in 2013, a lot of changes may have taken place since then.)