Driving the cliff Jingdi Hanging Tunnel to Shenlongwan Village
Located in Shanxi province, Pingshun county, in China, the infamous Jingdi Hanging Tunnel is a very exciting drive surrounded by high mountains. It’s one of the famous Chinese tunnel roads.
Tucked away in the Northern Taihang Mountains, the steep and rugged man-made road is totally paved, running through a tunnel carved in the mountains connecting Shenlongwan a small mountain village, north of China's Shanxi Province, to the outside world. Before the construction of the road, it used to be very difficult for villagers to get outside and residents had to climb through treacherous mountains paths for 6 hours detouring eight townships of three provinces to arrive at the county seat, or risk their lives climbing a narrow, almost vertical steep pass. The road now is a key element for local transportation and has become a popular tourist attraction for road explorers. Thanks to this road, villagers here now cast off poverty by developing tourism. Since the cliff road was put into service in 2000, the unique landscape of Shenlongwan has attracted a growing number of visitors. Many villagers who worked outside have returned to help develop local tourism and offer tourists rural home-stay services.
In 1985 villagers decided to carve out a road in the precipitous cliffs. With only primitive tools they dug through hard rocks, inch by inch. Its construction took 15 years (1985 to 2000). The drive is very picturesque but traffic jams are very common. The tunnel is 1.526m long and ranges from 6 to 10m wide and 4 to 5m high. It is hundreds of meters away from the top of the mountain and the bottom of the ditch. There is such a sense of fear when driving.
Road suggested by: jorge manuel gómez sánchez
Pic: Taoan Ma