We didn’t actually get to Mt. Huang Shan until Friday, but our adventures began on Thursday. We went to a local travel agency in Nanjing to book the bus tickets and hotel (let it be known that I am using the term “hotel” very loosely). We were able to pull the travel agency worker away from playing solitaire on his computer just long enough to find out that we could purchase our bus ticket to travel to Huang Shan, but we would have to wait until we arrived in Huang Shan to purchase our return ticket. We asked what the bus schedule was for buses coming back to Nanjing from Huang Shan. We are so westernized! The way he looked at us made it very clear to me that the thought of access to such information was as foreign to him as Chinese is to me. :) However, we were sure that there would be a lot of buses running from Huang Shan to Nanjing on Saturday, so we didn’t worry about it too much. Next, we were able to go ahead and book our “hotel,” but the travel agency told us that they didn’t know the name of the hotel. What?! They gave us a phone number of a travel agent in Huang Shan, and they told us that he would give us our hotel information when we got there. A couple of things were running through my head.
1) “You’re joking, right?! There is absolutely no order in China!”
2) “Are we really going to pay money to take a bus six hours away only to sleep in a hotel that apparently lacks a name?”
3) “Is he wearing the same pink shirt he wore yesterday?”
We all concluded that 1) yes, there were a lot of question marks concerning this trip, but 2) such is life in China!
We got on the bus at 8 a.m. Friday morning, and the bus trip was actually pretty painless. Yes, the roads were so bumpy as to make you feel like you are riding on a banana behind a boat (I love those things!), and yes, the bus drivers drove in such a way as to treat the median as merely a suggestion and oncoming cars as harmless objects, and yes, I did wake up with a Chinese student sleeping on my shoulder. But really, all things considering—the trip could have been much worse.
The bus dropped us off at some random place in Huang Shan, and we were able to both buy return bus tickets for the next day and get the required information for our hotel. We ate lunch, took taxis up the mountain, and took the cable car from the foot of the mountain to the side of the mountain with our hotel.
Now before anyone judges me for choosing the picturesque 20-minute cable car as opposed to the grueling eight-hour hike up the mountain, let me make this disclaimer. The beauty of Mt. Huang Shan is not the hike from the base of the mountain, but the beautiful trails and hikes near the top of the mountain. We chose to spend our time hiking the beautiful scenery on top of the mountain rather than spending eight hours walking up thousands of granite steps. Alright, I feel like I can continue now. :)
We spent the afternoon and early evening hiking to our hotel. The scenery was gorgeous! Not only were the mountains spectacular, but the leaves had just begun to turn so the valley was full of autumn reds, greens, and oranges.
The Chinese hikers were also in rare form. As we were at one place taking pictures, one man blatantly pointed at my plaid shorts and began laughing. I know they were only $15, but that’s kind of rude, isn’t it? I ended up taking a picture with his family. :)
When we were getting closer to our hotel, I heard a large group of people speaking Cantonese behind me. My roommate, Nate, and I stopped and started talking to them. We spent the next little while chatting with the big group, and we enjoyed every second of speaking Cantonese! It is such a fun language!
We made it to our hotel just before dark. We ate an expensive dinner that consisted of very average food, and then we checked in to our sleeping quarters. Honestly, they weren’t that bad. Compared to sleeping on those train beds, it almost felt like the Four Seasons. Ok, not really. The lights were off at 9 p.m., and we fell asleep to the sound of rhythmic snoring, compliments of the old Chinese man in the other “room” (other side of the curtain).
The lights came on at 4 a.m., and we looked around and saw that all the Chinese people were gone! We didn’t want to get beat to the best spots to see the sunrise, so we quickly got up and headed to the spot we picked out the night before. A couple of comments.
1) I don’t think I’ve ever felt so rested getting up at 4 in the morning! Maybe there is something to that “early to bed, early to rise” thing. :)
2) It was freezing! While my shorts and sweatshirt might work for an afternoon in Nanjing (one of the four hottest cities in China), they didn’t quite do the trick at 4 a.m. on the top of a mountain.
3) I have never seen a more bright and vibrant sky in my entire life. All the constellations that I would’ve learned, if, of course, my astronomy class was not in a dark planetarium with leather recliners during my senior year, were visible. There were also shooting stars all over the sky. While I certainly don’t consider myself to be one who would choose star-gazing over the opening weekend of March Madness, I must admit that it was nothing short of spectacular.
We reached our appointed cliff around 5:30 a.m.. We were all sitting there, enjoying the peace and serenity of the morning, when we heard a mass of footsteps behind us. Before we knew it, the quiet tranquility of the morning was replaced by the shouts and (unfortunately) spitting of masses of Chinese people. No matter where you go, Chinese people are everywhere!
They were so friendly and fun to talk to as we waited for the sunrise, and they all screamed when they thought the sun had come up. It hadn’t yet. Ten minutes later, the sun really came up. They screamed again. :)
After going back to our hotel and eating breakfast, we spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon hiking.
Around 1 p.m., we took the cable car back down the mountain, ate lunch, and by 2:30 we were on a bus heading back to Nanjing. We got home around 8:30 on Saturday night. I am so glad we took the weekend and went hiking on Mt. Huang Shan! If I get the opportunity to come back to China, I would love to spend a couple of days hiking Mt. Huang Shan.
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