9-22-09
Today I woke up to the sun beaming into our train cabin. Again, there was no food service, so Julia and I snacked on US crackers and an apple. We arrived in Huangshan city around 9 am and were met by another tour guide named Jack. Apparently Jack is a very popular English name among tour guides (however, the tour guide also had a Chinese name). We then started our 45 minute ride to the base of the Huangshan Mountain gates. Along the way we picked up some water for 1.5 yuan each, which is cheap compared to the 10 Yuan you'll pay per bottle on the mountain. Food and water is very expensive on the mountain because everything is hiked up the mountain by porters. We first arrived at a big bus station where the Chinese tourists can take specially authorized taxes or buses to the top (the government of China has limited to the number of vehicles on the main road up to the base of the Huangshan gates due to heavy traffic and accidents). However, because we were foreigners Jack was able to acquire a special permit that let us drive our tour van up to the gates.
We were dropped off at the eastern train (or backside of the mountain), which offer a shorter and easier hike up the mountain. The western trail (or frontside) is suppose to be much longer, very steep at times, grueling, but prettier. We decided to take the easier route up and we arranged for Jack to pick us up from the bottom of the west trail. Apparently, even going down the western trail is difficult and takes about 6 hours. The eastern trail is said to take between 1.5 to 3 hours. There are also two cable cars that go up the mountain for the less adventurous. The student entrance fee to hike the trail was 110 Yuan each. There were many stalls selling water, food, and trinkets along the trail up the mountain. Prices proved to be very expensive, as the water we bought was 8 Yuan each and an apple was 5 yuan. There were very few people hiking up the trail, but we discovered that many Chinese tourists are willing to take the cable car up and then walk down. We even saw one older gentlemen being carried down by porters. The price to take the chair was about 300 Yuan... however, it seemed that there were multiple prices listed on the chair... so I'm not sure if the amount varies depending on where you start. As we climbed up, we ran into numerous porters with chairs waiting anxiously (or sleepily in many cases) for tired tourist to give up and purchase a ride up or down. On our way up, we only saw four people besides us and the porters climbing the stairs. Two of which were businessmen, complete with suits and a briefcase. It was quite funny to see them huffing and puffing their way up the stairs. Julia and I are both out of shape, so the hike up caused us to sweat and huff and puff like mad. We ended up playing leap frog with the businessmen, often passing them, or having them pass us as we took picture breaks. Unfortunately, it was rather cloudy, thus making it difficult to see the rock formations that Huangshan is famous for. Many Chinese paintings depict these famous mountains and their rolling clouds.
While headed up the trail we ran into numerous porters carrying linens for washing, and rice and noodles up the trail. We even ran into packs of 6 porters carrying giant marble blocks (each about 10 feet in length and 10 inches to a side). To coordinate their movements, the porters chanted a tune. Many of the Chinese tourists were quite amazed that two westerns were climbing up the mountain with backpacking backpacks on... with several snapping photos as we walked by.
We finally made it to the top after a lunch break, numerous stops for photo shoots, and 3 hours and 17 minutes. We were very excited to find that we had made it to the top... and then very disappointed when we discovered we had to walk about 3 more kilometers to get to our hotel. Additionally, the signage at the top of the mountain, while very helpful in identifying viewing points, was very poor in regards to finding the hotels. As there were many paths, we constantly were having to ask the porters, or anyone else we saw who looked official, where the Pai Yun Lou Hotel was. We were relieved to eventually find it and excited to take a warm shower and to get out of our drenched hiking clothes. The hotel is listed as a four star hotel and it certainly lived up to its name (and price... 1280 Yuan for a double). The rooms were also very nice, ours having a flat screen tv, complete with satellite TV (which despite its many channels proved useless to us as it only had one channel in English, which repeated the same news stories every 15 minutes). The hotel also had a restaurant, which offered very nice, though expensive food. Our appetites got the best of us, as we ordered way too much. We had sweet and sour pork with pineapple (so yummy!), steamed buns, and mu shu pork (though there was no pancakes to put the food in like in the US), hot tea, and two cokes. While very good, we also paid an extreme sum of 220 Yuan or 30 dollars. Considering we had been eating for about 7 Yuan or 1 dollar each in Shanghai, this was crazy expensive.
Tomorrow we're going to wake up at 4:15 am to catch the 5:55 am sunrise at the top of Brightness Peak...
- Scott