Huangshan (Yellow Mountain), Anhui Province

2010.06.18

The gates to an incredible hike!

To the left, you can see the former pathway that led up the mountain that porters used to transport goods.

I wanted to sit in one of these and have people carry me up the mountain. But I have a bit too much pride to have come so far and not hoofed it up the mountain on my own:)

It is truly humbling to see these porters transport everything up the mountain. This guy was carrying steel cables to the top. It's 7.5km and even with a backpack of water, snacks and my camera, it starts getting heavy. So I cannot even imagine how they make it up there.

The last 0.5km was excruciating...I just didn't want to go anymore and it was much steeper than the rest of the trail. My knees were absolutely killing me by this point...

Two Cats Catching a Mouse

I don't really see it...but I guess if you squint, that little rock on the left hand side is the mouse and the two small lumps are cats. I don't get it...

Almost there...

Okay, at this point, I could see the top and this porter was just steadily making his way up with all his bags of rice and I was nearly crawling on my hands and knees.

I very narrowly managed to get to the top before he did and in comparison, I wasn't even carrying so much!

Lovers bring locks and attach them to the chains at the top of Huangshan. Supposedly this will ensure that your love will last for eternity. There were a LOT of locks up there!

OMG...I made it!!! I need a nap now...

On the way down...I had intended on completing a loop and going down a trail on the west side of the mountain. But I was running out of time b/c I took my time meandering around the trails at the top, my knees were hurting real bad and I had a train to catch to Shanghai.

So sadly, I wasn't able to see as much of the mountain as I had intended. In contrast to the 2 hours it took me to get to the top, it was a 20 minute cable care ride back down to the base.

I love this photo of Huangshan b/c it looks like these rocks look so well balanced and it's just a lovely reminder of how beautiful this place is.

Getting to Huangshan in the morning wasn't a problem b/c you can book a seat on a bus and it takes about an hour and a half to get there. Then they cram everyone in like sardines, but it's all so much fun b/c who knew that there would be so much enthusiasm and chatter at 7 in the morning!

I met some really lovely people on this little ride up to the base of Huangshan. Most were just students who worked in Tunxi, and had dreams of travelling around the world. So they were curious about my travels and like most other people that I had encountered, really interested in that I was travelling to all these places alone and getting by on just a smattering of Mandarin.

Coming back was a touch interesting to say the least. The person at my hostel just told me to stand in the middle of the road & flag down a bus. Really.

Thankfully I didn't have to flag down a bus. I told the person that I wanted to get off at the Tunxi bus station and I could make my way back to the Old Town. I even showed the person on the map.

In a truly priceless moment, we pass by the bus depot and I asked why we didn't stop. The person goes, "Oh we already passed it." So I asked where I could get off close to to Tunxi and she goes, we can stop here. We were in the middle of nowhere with few cars and the river and this was a good long ways away from bus depot already. Let's just say prospects of getting back to Tunxi were not great. But other people were getting off and I figured, what the hell. And it just so happened that I was able to flag down a taxi a couple of minutes later. Turned out that it was only a five minute drive back into town.

So I still had time to shower and have dinner & a beer before getting on the night train to Shanghai. Definitely had a good laugh about this one after the fact:)

Next up...Shanghai...