Nanchang and Longhu Shan (Part 1 of 13 Days Tour)

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This was a record 13 days travel across 3 provinces Jiangxi, Anhui and Zhejiang during winter time. The total distance was 1341 km covering Nanchang - Jiujiang - Jingdezhen - Wuyuan - Huangshan city - Hangzhou. This is the main route and the distance excludes the traveling between the cities to the destinations around it. Along the way, we visited 4 UNESCO World Heritage sites and 5 Most Beautiful Places in China. We were fortunate to travel according to our travel plans without being affected by the weather. Along the way, we had to make some changes to the travel schedule but still managed to visit all the places planned. This is a land of mountains, pavilions and ancients villages.

We started the tour from Nanchang and went straight from the hotel to visit Tenghuang Pavilion which was one of the 4 famous one in China built 1300 years ago where the Ming Dynasty founding Emperor had hosted a dinner there to celebrate a key battle victory during his conquest of the entire country. The pavilion has a grand exterior and it has a museum with models that shows how the exterior design has changed over the different dynasties.

On the next day, we went to Longhu Mountain which is one of the Most Breautiful Places in China.. Winter time is off peak season and we were the only ones in the tour group. It was a 2 hours train and a 45 minutes bus ride to the destination. Longhu Mountain is actually a Danxia landform with numerous mountains with a shadow river running through the valleys. It was a fairly relaxing tour with rides on the river raft and a bit of walking around the Mountain.

We were supposed to go to Mt Lu on the 3rd day but cancel the trip as it was snowing in the morning.
Instead, we visited the museum about the 1st Aug 1937 uprising which also symbolize the formation of the present day People’s Liberation Army. Part of the museum was an old hotel where the uprising leaders stayed and used as the command post. The admission to the museum is free but the lesson learnt was you had to collect the tickets at designated hours and you have to be there early. We also figured out the travel arrangement to Mt Lu. Instead of traveling to Mt Lu from Nanchang, we figured out that we would save more time by going to Jiujiang. Not only, would we have cut down the travel time to Mt Lu, it is also near to our next destination, Jingdezhen, after Lushan. So, we booked an MPV made our way to Jiujiang which was originally not in our travel plan.


We were in Jiujiang for 2 days. Our plan to visit Mt Lu on the 4th day had to be postponed because of snowing again. So, we tour around the city. Jiujiang is a city along the Changjiang River. Our first destination was to see the Changjiang bridge linking Jiangxi and Hubei. From there, we walked along the Changjiang River to the Soujianglou Pagoda and Xunyang Pavilion. Soujianglou Pagoda consisted of a pavilion and a pagoda. The pagoda was hit by Japanese artillery shelling in Jun1938. It was damaged and tilted but did not collapse. The tilted pagoda became the rallying symbol of the Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion for the locals. Xunyang Pavilion was actually a 4 storey hotel built in the Tang Dynasty but made famous after being mentioned in the “Water Margin” story.


The other entries about this trip can be accessed from here:-

Lushan and Jingdezhen (Part 2 of 13 Days Tour)


Wuyuan and Sanqing Shan (Part 3 of 13 Days Tour)


Huangshan and Ancient Villages Xidi and Hongchun (Part 4 of 13 Days Tour)


Hangzhou (Part 5 of 13 Days Tour)


Note: The contents (text and photos) of this article remain the copyright of the Author, Jenny. Under no circumstances should the photos or text be used without the express written permission of the Author. Please contact the Author by leaving a message if you wish to use or publish photos or text from this article.

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Photos

Longhu Mountain
This is one of the 7 Most Beautiful Danxi in China ranked by Chinese National Geography magazine.

Tenghuang Pavilion
This 1350 years old pavilion is one of the 4 famous ones in China.

Longhu Mountain
Mountains with interesting shapes. Here is one that looks like the face of a man.

Longhu Mountain
River boats like this are plenty there and used for tourist.

Winter in Jiujiang
The snowing delay our travel to Mt Lu but the locals were very excited as it seldom snow there

Bridge spanning Changjiang River
The other end of the bridge is Hubei province.

Soujianglou Pagoda
The pagoda is still tilted after being hit by Japanese shelling in 1938.