China 2025 – April 21

Zhangjiajie has more delights to offer. Today we are going to cross the longest glass bridge in the world, stretching across the ‘grand canyon’ of Zhangjiajie.

Dark clouds are threatening to dampen our fun. I don’t know, early in the morning in our hotel room, that Bock is also planning a zip-line canyon crossing and a slide down a chute to the bottom of the canyon. I know we have to get to the bottom and take a short boat ride to a pier, from where a boardwalk will take us to the exit. I also know there’s an elevator that will take us down after we cross the glass bridge. He reveals his intentions after the taxi drops us off at the site of the glass bridge. I tend to avoid activities that spell danger or embarrassment, but succumb to his appeals to my holiday spirit. At least he is not proposing a bungee jump, at which I’d definitely draw the line. Again, my tickets cost a fraction of Bock’s. A few drops of rain are all that the clouds deposit. We needn’t have taken umbrellas and raincoats.

The glass bridge is a sort of megastructure, 400 metres long. There are many people on the bridge, but not anything like the crowds we encountered in the national park. The grand canyon is a large ravine. It doesn’t invite comparison with Arizona’s mighty chasm of the same name. But the scenery is spectacular.

My fears of the zip line crossing prove unfounded. Well strapped in and in no danger of falling off, I am able to enjoy brief exhilaration suspended in mid-air. The chute is long and winding and requires technique to slide down. At least I’m not the only one stalling every few metres and being forced to generate some momentum by awkwardly pushing off my backside. I’m zonked at the end of it. I wow never to attempt something like that again. It is theme-park stuff. As somebody I agree with said, theme parks are those places I like to go past.

We board the ferry, which chugs past a pretty waterfall. At the pier we commence a three-kilometre walk to the exit. The path, a boardwalk in many places, hugs the canyon wall. It is dark and damp. At one point it passes through Bandit Cave, which is lit up in many different colours. I’d have preferred darkness, an old friend.

We reach the exit shortly after midday and decide to spend the rest of the day back in the Zhangjiajie national park. Tianzi mountain is worth exploring again. It is also a nice way to get from the south gate to the east gate from where we can walk to our hotel in Wulingyuan to pick up our luggage and head off to Zhangjiajie city.