'Fairyland's' otherworldly beauty

The Fairyland Scenic Spot in Xianju county, Zhejiang province, is a national 5A tourism zone. [Photo provided to China Daily]

It's about as otherworldly a place as our planet can conjure.

The appellation is indeed no accident. It hails from a decree by Song Dynasty (960-1279) ruler Zhenzong, who rechristened it after reading ancient China's luminary poet Li Bai's prose describing the area as a domicile of deities.

Arguably, he wasn't taking artistic liberties.

Xianju, in East China's Zhejiang province, seems to be divine poetry in itself, literally written in stone. Its mythology has been conjured by topography.

The phantasmal terrain is the scar tissue from an epoch when Earth unleashed hot-blooded volcanic violence, forging the world's vastest rhyolite configurations.

Visitors to Shenxianju Geological Park teeter 120 meters over the Nantian Valley as they cross the Heavenly Rope Bridge.

The area hosts a tightrope competition where contestants look gravity－and mortality－in the eye and stand tall. And very, very high above the ground.

Visitors are also left gasping－in adulation of the scenery and in terror at the heights－as they trek the 3-kilometer walkway that clings to cliff sides.

That's especially when crossing sections where the platform is constructed with reinforcement bars spaced an inch apart, meaning there's more empty space beneath your feet than solid support.

That's not to mention glass-bottomed viewing platforms that offer even clearer views of how far it is down to the ground.