In Sep 2018, 15 of us majority friends from Kediri with my mom as the eldest among us joined tour to China, Fenghuang was one of the city we visited. It’s quite a long journey to Zhangjiajie using flight, train and bus, from Surabaya – Hongkong – Guangzhou by flight then staying overnight in Guangzhou. The next day riding around 3 hous bullet train to Changsha, then continuing by bus for 6 hours to Fenghuang with distance about 400 km.
Finally almost dark we arrived at a bridge decorated beautifully with phoenix bird lighting at the left and right of the bridge. It's Fenghuang, at the Southwest of Tujia-miao Autonomous Prefecture of Xiangxi in Hunan, we checked in to Fengting hotel, having dinner before start exploring the city. During dinner we also celebrated my mom’s birthday, the birthday cake from our tour agent was beautiful and yummy, I preferred eating the cake than the main course :-). The main attraction in Fenghuang (Phoenix) ancient town, is the traditional house decorating with beautiful lighting at the edge of the Tuo Jiang river. It’s not too far from our hotel, just went across the street, then going down to the river bank. Although it’s raining, it didn’t stop us for enjoying the scenery. I brought a small umbrella, but it’s difficult for me to take picture while bringing the umbrella, sometimes my mom or my friend helped to hold the umbrella for me.
I didn’t bring a real camera, just using my smartphone (iphone 8), the quality and zoom feature were limited comparing to SLR camera. Anyway I’m quite happy with the result as the actual view was fascinating. I kept taking countless pictures of the magnificent scenery traditional house and bridge decorating with colorful light that illuminated to the river. Using iphone, the face of persons were too dark, if I use flash the beautiful background could not be captured well. Our tour leader was creative enough, she turned on her smartphone lamp to light up our face while our friend taking the picture.
The trail along the river bank was not smooth, we had to be careful, the path was made from stones and quite slippery while raining. I tried to guard my mom, walking hand in hand slowly, it’s quite embarassing when I was the one who slipped and falled down when stepping down stairs. Lucky nothing was hurt and my smartphone was not broken, just getting wet on my pants and a little bit dirty of the dust. After that my mom didn't trust me anymore, she preferred walking by herself and refused me to hold her hand. We've got a chance to take some pictures together on the colorful light bridge on the river with glittering houses belong to Miao ethnic as the background.
It's getting late, almost 22:00 o'clock, our guide asked us to rush as she was afraid that the shops would be closed soon, they were located around 20 minutes walked from our starting point. Passing by the seller either on the street or shop, we were not allowed to shop as she would like to show us the landmark of Fenghuang first.
The 21-meter tall Wanming Tower stands at the foot of Qinglong Mountain, on the north bank of the Tuojiang River was our destination. It’s very beautiful at night with yellow light surrounding the tower. We queued to take picture in front of the tower. Diaojia Building the landmark previously was home of the richest man in Fenghuang facing directly to the river and near the beautiful rainbow bridge. There were some traditional boats which could be rent for sailing along the river, we didn't take it as we still would like to explore the village.
The 2 storey rainbow bridge art building was built in 1368 AD, we didn’t go on top of the bridge, just admired the charming lighting decorating the bridge from the river bank. Illumation of yellow light on the arc of the bridge created an awesome scenery. Sometimes a traditional boat decorating with lights passed under the bridge. Under the bridge there were some bronze statues showed people activities.
We stopped by at a shelter where we could take the picture of Wanming Tower and the river from the other side. There were a service for taking picture wearing the traditional clothes. My couple friend rented the clothes and took pictures from different angles with colorful light scenery as the background. She looked beautiful like the local people as she has a fair skin and small eyes.
It’s free time after that, so I kept walking to explore the shops with my mom and my friend from Jakarta. Some restaurants, coffee shop and bars were also available along the road. We tried to find souvenirs for our relatives and friends, this is one of Indonesian people habit when traveling. Some pastel colors pashminas were attracted us, we bought some soft beautiful pashminas in the store. We passed by a fruit seller on the street, the fruit was yellow with some small bulges, we didn’t dare to buy and taste it, do you know the name and the taste?
As it’s getting late, and we’re afraid of getting lost, we decided to turn back to the hotel using the same way, actually we could go by taxi there, but I still would like to take some pictures of the river and stroll the narrow alley. On the way back, my friend accompanied my mom to go first as I often stopped taking some pictures. We also got a chance to stop by at the seller on the street to buy imitation silver bracelet, necklace and beautiful hand embroidery paintings. You could bargain to buy stuffs both on the street and in the stores.
The next morning, after breakfast I rushed to go down to the river again. It’s already the time to check out and go to the bus, as I saw some of our friends were still not there, they were not check out yet, I asked my friend to accompany my mom so I could run to the river to see what it looked like. My tour leader said that the picturesque night scenery is much more beautiful comparing to the day scenery.
Quite surprising I met my couple friends from Semarang at the river bank. I saw 3 women wearing traditional clothes taking picture, they have difficulty as it’s drizzle, making the stairs and footpath were wet while their dress was quite long, so they had to manage it well avoid the dirt. From my opinion, the day scenery still looked good with the traditional house and beautiful form of the bridge with the mist pervades the scene, only the water was not too clean, the colour was brown at that time and the houses were looked rather gloomy. It's different from the night scene which looked brighter and shining.
Lucky my friend was there, so we could help each other to take picture. We didn’t dare to go further as we’re afraid the group will leave us soon. Some pictures were able to take to capture day scenery in Fenghuang. In front of our hotel was nice too, we could see the mountains covering with cloud at that morning.
Although the journey to reach Fenghuang was quite a long time, we’re quite happy with the amazing night view with it’s traditional unique wooden houses built on stilts, settled by Miao & Tujia ethnic, the minority tribes in China. The natural beauty scenery which well-preserved more than 300 years looks like traditional Chinese paintings.
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