Almost exactly 14 years after I visited Shilin near Kunming, one of the most famous parts of this World Heritage Site, I had a chance to visit Wulong Karst and got a glimpse of Jinfoshan Karst during my trip to Chongqing. For Wulong Karst I only saw 2 of its components, the Three Natural Bridges and Furong Cave. Like Wulingyuan that tourism industry people prefer to call it Zhangjiajie, Wulong Karst is known as Xiannvshan or Fairies Mountains after the nearby booming tourist town that full of fake European especially Italian architectural style bungalows. From the big pyramid shaped tourist center there are frequent bus services to the Three Natural Bridges, the most well known and most visited part of Wulong.

The bus took us to the entrance and then we used the glass elevator down to the below canyon or Chinese called it Tianlong Tiankeng or “Heavenly Dragon Pit”. From the elevator exit we saw the first natural bridge, Tianlong Qiao or "Heavenly Dragon Bridge". The bridge is amazing with its big size probably the biggest natural bridge I have seen, in my opinion this place should be called the natural tunnel. We needed to hike down under the arch to reach the pit, along the way is the famous viewpoint of Chinese pavilion inside the towering karst pit, the one in Transformers: Age of Extinction! When we reached the pavilion which is a historic rest area since ancient times but heavily refurbished to use in many local films. At the pavilion we noticed that the Heavenly Dragon Bridge actually is a two-span natural bridge. Then we walked to see the second natural bridge, the Qinglong Qiao or "Green Dragon Bridge", passed many beautiful forests, ponds and Transformer characters!  True to its name there is a small stream under the bridge, so this tunnel is lovely with small plants and at the exit even had a small waterfall. This second pit called Shenying Tiankeng or "Divine Eagle Heaven Pit". This section has nothing special apart from lovely pathway along the picturesque stream. The third bridge called Heilong Qiao or "Black Dragon Bridge", the arch under this bridge is the longest and narrowest so fewer light inside forming darker environment and that is why it got the name. The pathway continued along the stream, along the route some traces of historic road could be seen, it is quite incredible that the road under these three natural bridges was used as a shortcut to connect Sichuan with the rest of southeastern China since ancient time. At the end, the bus took us back to the center at Xiannvshan.

For Furong Cave, we needed to arrange transportation to Jiangkou Town around an hour from Xiannvshan. From Jiangkou we had to take cable car to the cave. The view of Furong River and lake from cable car is really nice and here we could see the impressive height of Wulong Karst. Furong is heavily promoted as the only UNESCO World Heritage cave of China by its own merit. Inside the cave is quite wet with subterranean stream, and with Chinese fashion the whole cave is flooded with colors of lighting which constantly changed from red, green, yellow, and blue. This kind of lighting make some caverns looked dreamy almost Disney-liked, but quite doubtfully cheap for some. The first section of cave reminded me of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky, but the subsequent caverns become more and more bigger as well as the dripstones are become more impressive, intense, and gigantic with the same vibe of Carlsbad Cavern in Texas. 2.5 hours inside Furong I could see almost all types of speleothems: straws, grand draperies, huge columns, flowstones, and heaven of stalagmites and stalactites, really a full package of great cave.

On my way back to Chongqing passing Nanchuan City, just next to the highway was another listed component of this World Heritage Site, the Jinfoshan Karst. From my bus I could see the towering rush green karst mountain range of Jinfoshan, similar to Wulong Karst, so I did not find any obvious difference other than just a continuation area of Wulong Karst Mountain.

I really had a good time in Xiannvshan, the karst landscape really suits the image of stereotype of China, the grand size of Wulong Karst with deep cut canyon really provides the sense of superlative in the same way of Canadian or American national parks. Apart from Three Natural Bridges and Furong Cave, the area is beautiful with towering karst mountain, countless karst canyons and pits together with nice traditional villages and rice terraces of Miao people. No surprised that Wolong Karst is a popular destination among locals and East and Southeast Asians. For Three Natural Bridges, a long day trip from Chongqing is doable but I would not recommend since the queues inside the park from 11 AM onward will be incredibly long with those day-trippers. Overall, Wulong Karst is a must see and truly an impressive natural wonder.