Early start our 5 day tour into the Mountain area of China.
Our taxi to the Fuzhou Airport was at 6.00 am – i hour ride to the Airport – 50 kms from the city centre. Airport was busy as – 7.00 am when we arrived. Each of the 44 checkin counters had long queues. We had a problem with my ticket as they had spelt my name wrong. Ruth managed to get that sorted – but meant we were last on the plane. this flight on Xiamen Airlines is only 1 hour to Changsha city. The train was going to be 5 hours but with the flight price the same – we decided to fly.
Xiamen Airlines are very good – nice clean plane and very good cabin crew.
We had carried our luggage on board so did not have to wait to collect it.
Instead of doing a 4 hour bus ride to Zhangjiajie City – Ruth had booked a private car. He was late in picking us up (1 hour) and we found out he was also picking up two others – so four passengers and one driver. It took another hour to pickup the other two passengers, one also had a new kitten.
We now had three people in the back seat of his Kia – not comfortable for us especially Ruth who sat in the middle. I could see the speedo and watch the driver – and I have to admit – it was not a ride I ever want to do again. We did the trip in about 2.5 hours with the driver on his cellphone most of the time – some texting and some voice calls. Once out of the city and on the open road – his speed ranged from 120 – 150 kph and while texting – did not have his hands on the wheel.
Now all motorways in China are two lanes each way, usually two separate roads.This was one of the main roads into the mountain area so had plenty of trucks and buses as well as private cars. When our driver came up to a slow car – he sat on his horn until they moved out of his way. I think that he thought he was a “Fast and Furious” Driver but is was just a kid who still needed to learn how to drive with passengers.
At last, we got there and after he had dropped off the others – he took us to the tour companies office. After sorting our tours – they took us to the Jinzhou Hotel.
It was a three star and was nice (also western toilet).
After we had rested – we went walking to the main shopping area. While we were in a shopping mall – it rained but had stopped by the time we were walking again.
Day one down – early to bed because we have a 6.30 am start in the morning – with our luggage.