On the seventh day, I had a trip planned to the filming location of the border crossing. Accordingly, I woke up very early, had a quick snack in my hotel room, and headed to
Shanghai Hongqiao Railway Station (上海虹桥).
Station coordinates (WGS-84):
31.196039, 121.315273
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
Wikipedia article (en)
The station platform:
My train G7333 departed from this station at 06:20 and arrived at
Jinyunxi Station (缙云西; the name Jinyun West railway station is also used in English) at 08:57. This is an intermediate station; the train continued further on.
Station coordinates (WGS-84):
28.680291, 120.050473
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
Wikipedia article (en)
Views from the platform of Jinyunxi Station:
It should be borne in mind that there is another railway station slightly closer to the border crossing —
Jinyun (缙云). However, it is not very convenient for traveling to the crossing. Not high-speed trains but regular ones pass through it, and they are quite slow and very infrequent.
From the platform, I went into the station building, which, by the way, is very large. On the wall, I noticed a tourist map:
As you can see, this area is very rich in attractions. One of them is our border crossing (did you spot it on the map?).
I ordered a taxi to the border crossing via the app. The car was found instantly, and it was already somewhere at the station where I was. However, I did not find this car on the street in front of the building. I had to run back into the station, to the information desk, and ask where my car was. The employee immediately took me to a closed-type parking area located right inside the station building. There I found my car. The delay caused by my lack of awareness amounted to only about 5 minutes.
The car took me to the main entrance of
Xiandu Scenic Area (缙云仙都景区), where the border crossing was filmed, in about 30 minutes.
Entrance coordinates (WGS-84):
28.694156, 120.132775
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
Official website
Wikipedia article (zh)
Baidu Baike article
Trip.com article
The area near the park entrance:
I went to the ticket office and bought an entrance ticket. The cashier, seeing that I was a foreigner, called an English-speaking staff member. He gave me a map of the park and explained where I could go. I showed him frames from the series with Sharak’s camp on my smartphone and asked where this had been filmed. He immediately recognized the place and said that it was not very far away, but outside the park. He advised me to go to the stop of the local tourist bus, which is designed for visitors and runs to the most interesting places around Xiandu Scenic Area, and to ask there how to get to it.
Encouraged by such a simple solution, I left the ticket pavilion and first headed toward the border crossing. It is located very close to the entrance where the taxi had dropped me off.
It was raining. I had an umbrella, but my shoes were summer ones, with lots of holes. It was not very pleasant, but I focused on exploring the park and did not let the weather spoil my mood.
This is the Haoxi River (好溪; within this park it is called the Lianxi River, 练溪, but physically it is the same river):
And here is the rock at the border crossing, familiar to all of us since childhood!
A frame from the series:
Other photos of the rock:
This is
Dinghu Peak. Very often, to avoid confusion, the word
Xiandu is added to this name (
Xiandu Dinghu Peak, 鼎湖峰), since there is another mountain with the same name in a completely different part of China.
Peak coordinates (WGS-84):
28.692201, 120.139226
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
Baidu Baike article
Trip.com article
Views around:
Compare with a frame from the series:
Then I stepped a little aside.
And once again returned to the crossing.
The Giant Warrior was here!
The barbarians’ side:
More shots of the crossing:
A sign with information about the peak:
Then I crossed one of the small bridges to the other side:
There I also took a walk:
View from the land of the Dragon Lord toward the barbarians’ side:
Shots from the side of the land of the Dragon Lord:
There is also a small pavilion there:
All this time, the rain kept falling. Although I walked under an umbrella all the time, I still got wet, because while taking photos I would inadvertently move the umbrella aside, and my summer shoes were clearly not meant for puddles. Therefore, I lingered for a while in this pavilion and tried to dry off at least a little, but not very successfully.
Then I returned to the river:
And approached the base of Dinghu Peak:
Then I decided to return to the other side. I had to cross a very narrow bridge:
It was exactly here that Carl’s jeep drove in the series, and where the barbarians, San, Ashka, and other characters crossed.
Photos taken from the bridge:
Having reached the end of the bridge, I photographed the crossing once again:
I decided that I had already explored the most important things at the crossing, so it was time to head off in search of Sharak’s camp. I walked on foot to the local tourist bus stop, as advised by the man at the ticket office. This stop is located outside the park, and not at all where the taxi had dropped me off.
At first, I walked north through the park.
Thus I reached a barrier. The guard was very surprised, but let me out. Perhaps it was a staff-only exit.
Next, I walked along the river and rows of sunflowers, but already outside the park. The views were simply amazing.
In this way, I reached the tourist bus stop. It is not just a simple stop, but an entire complex. There is a ticket office, a souvenir shop, a café, and some other facilities.
Bus stop coordinates (WGS-84):
28.699551, 120.134533
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
I typed the necessary question into my translate app and began asking the staff about the filming location I was looking for, showing them frames from the series at the same time. The staff were very surprised and spent about fifteen minutes consulting among themselves, taking photos of the frames from the series on their smartphones, sending them to their friends via WeChat, and eventually realized that the filming location of Sharak’s camp was quite nearby. They sent me onto the tourist bus that was standing there at the stop, and then they disappeared somewhere.
There was a driver on the bus; there were no passengers. I regretted that the staff had not explained to him where I needed to go and had simply vanished. Because of this, I had to go through the entire quest again. I showed the driver the frames and the translated question in Chinese. He thought for a long time, asked clarifying questions — also via a translation app. Finally, he slapped his forehead, told me to sit down, and started the engine. We drove off — just the two of us!
Five or ten minutes later, we arrived at some place not far from the same river and got out of the bus.
Coordinates of the place where the driver left the bus (WGS-84):
28.713595, 120.148887
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
The driver led me to the river.
The rocks look familiar, don’t they? We were approaching the place where Sharak’s camp once stood!
Then we walked a little farther along the river and found ourselves at the spot where the angles are the most recognizable. This is exactly where Sharak’s camp was filmed.
On the far bank lies
Furong Gorge (芙蓉峡), and the series was filmed on the bank from which I took the photos.
Coordinates of the camp filming location (WGS-84):
28.712196, 120.145444
Maps: [
Baidu Maps] [
AMap]
Baidu Baike article
Trip.com article
By the way, in China there is at least one more gorge with the same name, so one should be careful when searching for information about it.
It should be noted that this area has become very heavily overgrown with trees. In the series, it was possible to see all the way to the mountains on the horizon from here, but now this is impossible.
More frames from this place:
The driver who brought me here:
Then the driver led me back to the bus.
We passed by some kind of unclear complex:
Then the following view opened up:
There turned out to be a playground nearby:
In the next photo you can see the bus that the driver brought me on (he is also in the frame, holding an umbrella):
As you can see, the area there is not wild at all. Solid houses are visible behind the bus — this is Shangzhang village (上章村). I am absolutely sure that it is perfectly accessible by taxi.
We got back on the bus, and the driver took me back to the place where I had boarded it. Before getting off the bus, I wanted to pay him, but he refused to take any money.
Now I could relax. There was still plenty of time before my return train, and I had already thoroughly explored the border crossing and even found the filming location of Sharak’s camp. The latter discovery, by the way, was not something completely incredible, but I was not just happy about it — I was downright proud.
There is a considerable chance that I was the first person from outside China (apart from those who took part in filming the series) to visit this place while knowing that Sharak’s camp had been filmed there. Amazing! Even the Chinese themselves are unlikely to know about this camp, since the series is almost unknown in China, as I understand it.
The rain did not stop for a single minute; it had been falling since morning. I was completely soaked, but incredibly happy to have discovered a new filming location. Water squelched in my shoes, my clothes and hair were wet, but I paid no attention to it.
Then I set off on foot back to the park, toward the crossing.
I really like the views of Dinghu Peak from this point:
Continuing on:
It was not possible to re-enter the park at the barrier where the guard had let me out an hour or two earlier. I walked farther, to the entrance where the taxi had dropped me off in the morning. By that time, the rain had intensified considerably, and I spent about an hour sitting in a café near the park entrance, drinking hot tea and browsing the Internet.
Then I decided to take a ride on the cable car. I was allowed to re-enter the park with the same ticket I had used in the morning.
I once again headed toward the border crossing, crossed the river via the small bridge, and made my way to the cable car. The path went through the Temple of the Yellow Emperor (黄帝祠宇; also called Huangdi Temple in English).
And here is the cable car.
I bought a ticket and got into the cabin. Since I was the only visitor, the cable car was started just for me alone.
As I approached the summit, the fog thickened.
Approaching the upper station:
There I jumped out and went to explore the surroundings.
Because of the fog, almost nothing was visible. As a result, I got bored there fairly quickly; moreover, I was completely soaked. So I went back down.
Approaching the lower station:
View from below:
Although there was still quite a lot of time before the train, I decided to head to the station to dry off. It had been raining all day without stopping, and I was thoroughly soaked.
I exited the park through the main entrance and called a taxi. A car was found almost immediately, but it took about ten minutes to reach me.
I spent several hours in the station waiting hall, during which I dried almost completely. While I was sitting there, high-speed trains passed through several times an hour. Some of them stopped. This frequency impressed me greatly.
In this photo you can see the electronic board with the list of upcoming trains. The photo was taken at a moment when all the things were displayed in Chinese. At other times, they switch to English. However, there was one column that was always displayed only in Chinese. This puzzled me. I pointed the camera of my translate app at it. It turned out that this column indicated colors. For my train, brown was indicated. I was surprised and went online. It turned out that these colors correspond to markings on the platforms. You need to look for the marking of the required color with the required carriage number. For example, here are the markings at the place where my carriage stopped:
I was traveling in the 8th carriage; accordingly, when searching for the place where it would stop, I looked for the brown marking with the number 8. Other trains have different lengths and carriage numbering, so at the same place of the platform, carriages with other numbers may stop. Overall, the system is very simple.
The platform:
My train G7338 departed from this station at 18:47 and arrived in Shanghai, at Hongqiao Station, at 21:27.
In Shanghai:
Thus ended my most distant and most interesting trip to the filming locations in China.
Read more
