An Evening in Feng Huang (Phoenix City)

Ctourus -- 7-day Tour of Zhangjiajie, Hunan, China 

Day 3 - Changsha to Feng Huang, November 8, 2017

Breakfast at the Dolton International Hotel was plentiful. Due to jetlag, we all woke up pretty early, around 3:00am local time so we were one of the first ones there for breakfast. It was certainly nice to enjoy a leisure breakfast in a nicely decorated restaurant. From tofu to noodle, bacon and eggs, fruits and salads, more than what one needs for a regular breakfast. Their hot soy milk was especially delicious! 

Great choices of made-to-order noodle.

After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and met our tour group to officially start our tour of Zhangjiajie. We were told that we would have a long drive of about six hours from Changsha to Feng Huang where we would spend the night. We made a couple of stops on the way at the rest areas. A long drive indeed but the beautiful scenery made it bearable.

Leaving the city of Changsha.

Changsha is the capital city of Hunan province.

Lots of traffic in the morning.

Passing a bridge over Xiangjiang River.

View from the bridge.

One of the rest stops. It was a nice surprise to see the changes of these rest areas. They are now much better developed and cleaned comparing to what we've experienced before.

Feng Huang, Hunan

After the long, long drive we finally arrived at the Fengting International Hotel in Feng Huang. Feng Huang means Phoenix in Chinese. It's an ancient town with a large population of minority tribes. It's also a town full of culture and history. The birth place of many famous artists and scholars. When we were here the last time, we were taken to a few of these historical sites but not this time around. After checking in and had our dinner at the dining room next door, we were taken to the river bank and had a self-guided tour of this ancient town on our own for the evening.

ET/AT got one of the two suites assigned to our group. This was their bedroom.

and the sitting area

Our regular guest room.

Fish pond in the courtyard.

Feng Huang at Night

When all the lights lit up in the evening, the town of Feng Huang turned into a beautifully decorated site. It almost had a festive feel to it, like Christmas. The restaurants, bars, stores along the river welcomed visitors with their best offerings and it was certainly fun wandering around this town by the river. We walked from the hotel to the main bridge and then back. It was nice spending a couple of hours enjoying the night life of this town before we head over to Zhangjiajie.

One of the bridges.

Water wheel by the river.