The mountains at Huangshan have been a definite highlight
and were well worth the winding night train to reach them! The journey from Shanghai
was surprisingly pleasant – the toilets weren’t too awful, the bed wasn’t too
uncomfortable, and the noise was tolerable. We even managed to watch a film on
the netbook with our headphones – Jason Bourne, you made it all bearable. We
arrived at around 9am, feeling a little rested, and headed to the Koala
International Youth Hostel. (I know – Koalas. It’s the same sensation we had in
Egypt staying at the Boomerang Hostel in Luxor – why isn’t it called the Panda
IYH, or the Pyramid Hotel? I guess that’s just too obvious.) The Koala was
pretty good actually, the best rooms we’ve had by far but lousy internet,
weirdly enough it was fine on day one but had deteriorated terribly by day
three!
We quickly realised that there wasn’t an awful lot happening
in Tunxi, the village near Huangshan (and we were in a Tunxi suburb, so even
less was happening near our hostel) but it gave us a day to explore the local
area, plan our trip up the mountain, and recover a bit from the hustle and
bustle of Shanghai. We had a great meal in a nearby restaurant – no idea what
we ordered, but it looked good and tasted good (and we ended up with some eggs
too because we saw them on the grill and pointed hopefully), and the place was
full of locals enjoying a slap-up meal, so it was clearly a popular place!
Feeling happy and full, we got an early night ready for a 6.30am start the next
day.
We were picked up at our hostel the next morning by a
minibus, then dropped at the local bus station to transfer to a bus headed
toward the mountain. THEN we changed buses again for the first part of the
ascent up the mountain – before the real fun began! You can take the option to
stay the night on the mountain summit (there are some surprisingly luxurious
hotels up there!) but we decided to cheat a little and get the cable car up to
the summit so that we could head back at the end of the day.
The queue for the
cable car was huge although surprisingly speedy, and within 35 minutes we were
zipping up the mountain much more quickly than we could have walked it. It
would have been a two hours or so trek to the top up steep steps, but there was
plenty more climbing to keep us fit once we got up there so we didn’t feel too
lazy.
The summit is far-reaching and consists of several spiralling peaks,
heading into a misty nowhere within seconds so that the atmosphere closes in on
you, leaving you saturated and damp before lifting away just as fast, and
revealing a landscape that’s unearthly.
Exploring the summit could take hours – there are several different paths winding in different directions, and we were able to explore several of these. The peaks have both beautiful and bizarre names – the ‘Cloud-Repelling Pavilion’ and the ‘Begin-to-Believe Peak’ nestle alongside ‘The Monkey Enjoying the Sea View’ peak, and ‘The Rock Flying From Afar’ peak. Possibly something lost in translation – but we like to imagine the monkey enjoying the sea view!
Once we had climbed to the top of our final peak before the descent, we said goodbye to the incredible views (veering always between being obscured and then revealed, bathed in sunshine). The descent is reputed to be as tough as the ascent (hmm, right, you might think) and it wasn’t really all that tough I suppose – but it was steep and took a long time (we whizzed down, panicking about missing the last bus, in three hours but the guidebooks suggested more like four). Occasionally the path requires you to start climbing for a while so in order to get around the twists and turns within the mountain, you had to add to your descent – not a good feeling after a day of intense walking on hard stone!
We met some great people on our way to the mountain, and
bumped into them again at the summit – a couple called Andy and Amanda, who
were living in China, teaching English. They gave us some great tips for our
time in China – and they may even come to NZ one day soon, so small world if we
do see them again!
We finally reached the bottom, having drilled through our
reserves of water and food – perfect timing to head back and refuel! We had hoped
to meet Andy and Amanda for dinner/drinks in the evening but we were too tired,
which was a real shame. Hopefully it’s a small enough world that we can make up
for it some other time, especially since they were the first people we’ve met
in China. It’s one small positive about sleeping in dorm beds over having your
own room – you meet people much more easily, and so far we’ve found very
limited social opportunities in China. Bangkok was certainly much more relaxed
(and there were plenty of English- speaking travellers too!) so we’re sure it
will get easier once we’re in SE Asia.
We spent our final day in Huangshan working, and enjoying
our lovely en-suite room. It’s not often that you’re pleasantly surprised by
budget accommodation, but this was a definite result! One last dinner out (in
our ‘lunch hour’, 1pm UK time!) and we headed to a nearby restaurant, which was
a little pricier than we’ve been paying but served the most incredible meal.
We’ve both been pleasantly surprised by the food in China – it’s much fresher
and tastier than Chinese food in UK restaurants, though nothing beats Thai
cuisine for me – yet! And (I think) we’ve even managed to avoid the worst of
the dubious meats, and we haven’t found a single chicken’s foot in our dinner
yet. Long may it continue!
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