April 20th - Tianmen Mountain

A very chilly morning !  That's where we are heading, the big white hole above.  Tianmen, literally means gateway to heaven.  Only later I realized it can get so foggy that you can't see a thing up here!

The fog comes and goes.

Apparently there are 999 steps !!

I think occasionally turning back to enjoy the view below helps to keep one's spirit going.

For those who believe in the power of locks !

We could see the mountains below when the clouds started to move away.

Below is the winding journey that we have to take later.  We had to come up by bus after the cable car service was suspended due to a storm in Zhangjiajie the day before, where many tourists were left stranded in mid air for some 3 hours.

It wasn't my intention, but the three women that were working on the groundnuts all left the scene for me to take this picture!  They were too embarrassed to be seen in it.

On the dashboard of every vehicle in Hunan, you'll find a little statue of Chairman Mao.  Here we were caught in traffic jam soon after setting off, it took us some time to find out there was an early morning accident.