Day 1, July 15th: Traveling to Huangshan
Hour Zero: Ningbo. Altitude: 150 metres.
On Wednesday, July 15th, we set off from Ningbo, China, to Huangshan via long-distance bus. Our trip had already been delayed by several days; we initially planned to leave on Monday, but we weren't able to, and so we skipped Tuesday and were finally able to set off on Wednesday.
Hour Five: Huangshan City. Altitude: I dunno, a little higher than Ningbo.
A couple hours later, we got off of the first bus at Huangshan City and got on another bus that would take us to the bottom of Huangshan Mountain, 45 minutes away from the city.
Hour Six: Foot of Huangshan Mountain // Huangshan Scenic Area. Altitude: Pretty Damn High.
We arrived at our four-star hotel in late afternoon, called Zhongrui Huayi.
We were pretty light on the things that we carried, and we wanted to be even lighter in the actual trip to the mountain, so we spent some time organizing and deciding what we wanted to bring up to the actual mountain and what we actually had to leave behind. We brought a lot of instant noodles, sausages and junk food.
We also spent some time checking the prices for everything and making sure that we had all the admission tickets needed so we wouldn't get stalled at some point in the hike. We ended up overpaying a bit, buying some unnecessary tickets, but hey, better safe than sorry.
We also bought a hiking cane and backpack from the hotel souvenir/convenience store. I say this because although the store sold a lot of overpriced souvenirs, they also sold instant noodles, food, and other stuff that was useful when stranded on top of a mountain where everything costs $10 or more.
There was a bit of time left in the day, so we paid a bit of money and hopped on a car to Feicui Gu, a scenic stream at the western foot of the mountain.
Hour Eight: Feicui Gu. Altitude: About the same as the hotel, maybe a bit higher as we climb upstream.
We stayed just about until the area closed. The rangers there hurried us up, telling us that when it got this late there were snakes and so we should get out as soon as possible. My little sister started freaking out. We made our way back out of the park, surrounded by tall bamboo shoots and their ominous shadows.
Eventually we found ourselves back at the hotel, and we looked for a place to eat. On the streets there were a ton of restaurants, each with advertisers that approached us with samples and flyers to try to convince us to go to their restaurant. Eventually we ended up in an eight-person room on the second floor of a family-owned place and ate some very nice food. Unfortunately, no pictures of food.
Day 2: Ascent Up Huangshan
Day Two, Hour Zero: At the hotel, getting ready to leave.
The next day, we ate breakfast at the hotel, paid some money, and got on a bus to head up to Huangshan. The bus would take us from near our hotel at the foot of the mountain, through the front gates, and up to Yungu Bus Station (云谷车站), after which we would transfer to a cable car up to 1500 meters.
Hour Two: Yungu Bus Station. Altitude: ~1000 metres.
Above: the view coming up the mountain. Bottom: the view from the bus stop at around a thousand metres up.
After I got off the bus, I immediately noticed that I did not have my cane with me. Unfortunately, there were dozens of buses parked in no apparent order. We spent half an hour asking each of the drivers, but were not able to find the cane.In the attempt to rejoin my dad and sister, we were not immediately able to find them, but eventually met on the staircase to the cable car. We were able to buy four used wooden canes from people coming down from the mountain for about 2 yuan apiece (~40 cents).
The cable cars:
It was raining slightly, but the view was amazing. The cables were very steep (easily 45 degrees) and the car moved very fast, according to a flier up to 6 metres a second. Admittedly the photos are a bit hazy, but at the present it just added to the effect of mystery and amazing scenery.
Hour Four: Shixin Peak (始信峰). Altitude: 1800 metres.
Our plan was to reach our mountain-top hotel by noon and then explore in the area for the rest of the day. After we got off the cable car, we hiked the short distance to Shixin Peak (始信峰), 1800 metres up in the air. The literal translation of Shixin is "Beginning to believe," and the view truly is amazing.Right from the get go, the path was very steep and scenic; there is a saying about Huangshan:
"每一步都是景，可要看好每一步。"Translation to, "there is scenery at every step of the way, but you have to watch your every step," coming from the beauty of the mountain and the steepness of the paths winding all around it.
Once we got to the bottom of Shixin Peak, my mom and sister decided that they couldn't make it and stayed at the bottom, while my dad and I hiked to the actual peak. It meant that we could be a little more risky.
It was about at this time that it started raining pretty hard (it rains a lot on Huangshan, especially in the summer) and we had to don raincoats. The view was still great, though.
In the third photography you can see the positions where the first and second photographs were taken. There were often times when I would look around and see where I had been before and marvel at the awesome engineering that had went into constructing quick, scenic paths between two places that seemed impossible to connect.
Anyways, here's some more:
The first picture shows my dad wearing the raincoats that we used in order to stay dry. you can actually see the hotel that we were headed to in the middle of the second picture.
Anyways, after spending about half an hour up in the peaks, my dad and I headed down to rejoin my mom and sister, and we continued on our way towards the aforementioned hotel.
We noticed a bunch of these colorful little birds hopping around:
It turns out that these birds are called Rusty Laughingthrusts. Here's a clearer picture, credit to Birding@Taiwan:
Hour Five: "Black Tigre Pine" (黑虎松), Altitude: 1600 metres
Huangshan is famous for its strangely-shaped pine trees. You've probably already seen a bunch of them in previous photos. This pine is the first famous one that we came across:
Hour Six: Beihai Hotel (北海宾馆). Altitude: 1600 metres.
It was raining as we made our final approach to our hotel:
The fog made one corner of the mountain look like a flat, illuminated white screen, like a giant movie set, as seen from our hotel.
We settled down in the hotel and sheltered from the rain for a while. In the afternoon, we set off again.
Hour ?: Danxia Peak (丹霞峰). Altitude: 1860 metres.
Our plan was to hike up Danxia Peak, but once again my mom and sister decided to stay behind, so we sent them off to Feilai Rock (飞来石), which was, ironically, even higher and tougher to climb than Danxia Peak.
You know what, take a picture to the face. Climbing up Danxia Peak was basically a whole kilometer (a little more than half a mile) of this:
After a grueling thirty minutes, we were met with a sign that read, "This scenic area has been closed to protect the environment." Fortunately, that was only a minor part of the peak, and we found more stairs just beyond that, which led to this:
Sometime as we were wandering around we found a bridge:
And I'm super-glad that we found the bridge, because from the bridge the view is this:
Onward!
We then descended the peak and set off to find my mom and sister, who were supposedly at Feilaishi. We headed off, but wound up on a totally different path, but the views were so great that we decided to continue on.
Hour ? + 1: Dawn Pavilion (曙光顶). Altitude: 1700 metres.
The pavilion itself looks like this:
There was one point where people put a bunch of padlocks on the railings (the padlocks are on the far right of the image):
The view from there and just along the way was absolutely mind-bogglingly awesome.
Then, we got to Qingliang Terrace (清凉台), from where we had a great view of a famous little peak that was supposedly supposed to be a shoe...?
The terrace itself looks like this:
Lastly, here's a panorama from the terrace:
It was at this point that a dragon appeared out of thin air and tried to eat us all. Fortunately we had so many cameras that it was overwhelmed and disappeared, again, into thin air.
Huangshan is famous for its "seas of clouds," and after we saw this we were able to understand why the different parts of Huangshan were named as seas ("Beihai" = North Sea, "Xihai" = West Sea, etc.)
Onwar
Hour ? + 1.5: Xihai Canyon (西海峡谷). Altitude: Going down!
The road ahead of us turned to steep, cavernous stairs down into the unknown (actually, into the West Sea Canyon, but whatever).
It was at this time that we decided to turn back and start heading to Feilai Shi. On our way back out of the canyon, we actually saw the rock across from us through the mist/fog/rain:
At this point, the fog was so thick that we could not see ten feet in front of us, much less the scenery. In the rare instances where the fog cleared, it was even more breathtaking than usual. Unfortunately, my phone also ran out of battery and storage, so I was not able to get any more shots that day.
We got to Feilai Shi in about an hour, touched the rock four times for good luck, and then began walking back to the hotel. We stopped along the way into a laser sculpting souvenir shop and then got food at a small street restaurant, and then somehow we split up. After a couple of phone calls we decided to meet up at the hotel.
At one point in our paths we ran into each other and converged in the last section the journey, and my sister was able to jumpscare me by hiding behind a tree (it was dark as hell, mind you):
(Video coming soon, it was on my dad's phone so he had to send it over to me.)
Day 3: Descending from the moutain
Hour One: Shihouguanhai. Altitude: ~1800 metres.
The next day my dad and I got up early to hike to Shihouguanhai (石猴观海, "Monkey Looking Over The Ocean"). We did forget our canes, but it was relatively short hike and we made it pretty easily.
It was still raining and there was a lot of fog, but we made it and it was fun.
Then it started raining hard - as in hazardously, mudslide-inducingly (but not lightningy) hard - and we had to focus all of our efforts on descending the mountain. We had to shelter from the rain for the first couple hours of the day, but at a little after noon we checked out and decided to brave the rain.
I hope you'll excuse this terminology, but when we came up Huangshan we came up the backside of Huangshan; we actually descended down the front side. This is because the frontside is much steeper than the backside and is easier to descend than ascend. It also has better views. The fog covered up most of it, most of the time, but more on that later.
We first decided to hike to Guangming Peak (光明顶), a little over 1800 metres tall, because...well, we could. We had traversed most of the path on the way down from Feilai Rock the day before, so it was relatively familiar to us. The fog made for a kind of eerie, quiet sort of field, which was counteracted by all the people bustling about in bright raincoats.
Above: there was a rare moment when the rain stopped, but you can still see the mad rush of whatever around the terrain. Below: one of the rare grassy lawns on the mountain. It shows what I meant by the fog creating a kind of eerie, quiet mood.
Hour Five: Guangming Peak (光明顶). Altitude: 1800+ Metres.
We finally got up to Guangming Peak after hearing many discouraging messages from tourists coming down the mountain saying that you couldn't see anything. They were right. We found something that looked like a Buddha statue:
But that was actually an observatory.
It happened to also be a decently priced restaurant, so we settled in for a meal.
Perhaps it was that we were inside a cloud, perhaps it was the heavy, heavy fog, but even inside the building the fog was present and vision was extremely limited:
We ate some food and then briefly went outside to take some pictures before continuing onward. Not that there was much to take pictures of.
We (and everybody else) were constantly scrambling for shelter. Every place with a roof was jam-packed once every minute or so as people came and went. It was crazy.
...continuing down the mountain
Because the fog was so thick, we were able to see the beauty of the path itself. And there was much to see here as well, mostly the shapes of rocks, but also the shapes of interesting trees:
Hour ?: Aoyu Peak and Tunnel.
After a bit of walking we arrived at the Aoyu Peak and Tunnel, which was a rock apparently shaped like a turtle. We weren't able to see, as a. the fog! and b. we were standing on the head, but it was cool, and the eerie feeling carried over stronger than ever.
The red inscription on the mountain reads "Naturally formed."
It took a good hour to make it pass Aoyu Dong. We covered very little horizontal distance, unlike some other peaks that we climbed, but the path kept going up and down and up and down and it was very fun.
Pretty much immediately after we made it, we were created with thunderous (not literally) rain. We dodged into a small cave-ish thing, which quickly filled up with dozens of other people seeking shelter.
The rain didn't seem to be stopping, so we decided to say YOLO and sprint ahead.
Here's a summary of that decision:
Pros: We made it to the cable car before its closing time. However, because of the rain, the people decided to extend the time of operation, so this really didn't matter anyways. We also managed to make it before it got too dark to hike, in which case we would've been stranded atop the mountain for another day.
Cons: We all got so soaked, from head to toe, that I couldn't tell the difference between wet and dark. I am still surprised that my iPhone, shoes, and backpack all survived.
Finally...the cable car. Welcoming Pine (迎客松) and Rhinoceros Peak
We finally made it to the cable car after a long, long time of walking. Except we didn't. We walked another 300 metres in our sopping wet shoes and clothes and were greeted with the sight of these two famous landmarks, the Welcoming Pine and the Rhinoceros Peak.
The pictures are blurry, but faq, it was amazing. It was even more amazing when we walked the 300 metres back to the cable car, descended about 500 metres of stairs (not exaggerating), bought tickets, and got in a car, carrying with us about sixteen gallons of water more than we should have.
There was one point where the cable car descended below the clouds/fog and the view suddenly became visible. Then the cable car rolled into the station, and we got off. I can't tell you how nice it was to see solid asphalt again. Holy shite, all those rocks would've driven me crazy.
We walked about two kilometers to the Huangshan hot springs, where we planned to eat dinner and resurrect ourselves.
It sounds weird to say this, but it was a huge relief to take off my sopping-wet cloth garments and replace them with elastic swimwear before jumping into a 38-degree pool of water. We also got meat kabobs and a bunch of other stuff before going inside to the lounge, where there was free fruit and cookies as well as food. FOOD!
Here's the thing about China: the main advantage it has over America is its food. Everywhere you look you will find great food. There is no place without great food. In fact on Instagram I commented that "if you try to post legit Chinese food on Instagram, your VPN will crash and you will be locked out of Instagram until you get it back up." I was joking, but my friend tried to post some stuff and her VPN actually did crash.
At the hot spring lounge restaurant, we got a couple of bowls of Henan Hui Noodles. These noodles are exceptionally hard to make, with the result that they're hard to find basically everywhere, even in its hometown of Henan. The chef at Huangshan, however, was from Henan and so we ended up with some great food in our stomachs.
There was a bus back to our hotel at 9, so we got out at 8:30. The thing was my mom and sister were so slow that we missed the bus by about 20 minutes and had to wait for the 10 o'clock bus. We got to the street of hotels and restaurants at about 10:30.
At this point we didn't even have a hotel booked, so we just returned to the hotel that we had booked earlier and begged them for a room (they were listed as being full). Somehow, we got a room on the same floor as the observatory and settled in for the night.
There was a bus back to our hotel at 9, so we got out at 8:30. The thing was my mom and sister were so slow that we missed the bus by about 20 minutes and had to wait for the 10 o'clock bus. We got to the street of hotels and restaurants at about 10:30.
At this point we didn't even have a hotel booked, so we just returned to the hotel that we had booked earlier and begged them for a room (they were listed as being full). Somehow, we got a room on the same floor as the observatory and settled in for the night.
Day 4: GTFO
On our last day, we got up and planned to eat breakfast at our hotel, but my sister refused to get up and so we had to leave her in the room while we got food. When we got back, however, my sister was still asleep inside the room, and we couldn't wake her up no matter how hard we tried. Eventually we got a janitor to open the door up for us, and then we left.
We took a small bus to Huangshan City, where there was a bus station to the high-speed railway that would take us away. The bus was super-crowded, and we had to stand at the front of the bus the whole way. Once we got to the train station, we had to wait in line for about an hour.
There were constantly people trying to cut the line, saying, "I'll be quick, I just need to get the tickets that I have reserved already," or "can you by my tickets for me? I'll be late in a couple of minutes..." and some people got so angry that it seemed like they would've killed somebody if it weren't a public space.
The person at the booth wasn't helping, either, stamping things with an extraordinary slowness, to the point where somebody cracked the window in anger (accidentally). It was a fun hour.
We ended up having to wait three hours for our train, and so we walked around the station, finding an overpriced McDonalds selling burgers for 40 yuan (~$7) apiece. At one point my dad tried to sell his book to a bookseller booth, calling some executive high up in the company.
When we got on the train, we found that it was pretty much empty, so we were able to run around and do whatever. We found that each row of seats had a lever at the bottom that enabled people to turn the whole row 180 degrees, so we kept trolling each other by turning either our own or the other person's seat.
And that's how our journey to Huangshan concludes. Thanks for reading through this absurdly long post (if you did), and keep tuned for more crazy stuff like this.
We took a small bus to Huangshan City, where there was a bus station to the high-speed railway that would take us away. The bus was super-crowded, and we had to stand at the front of the bus the whole way. Once we got to the train station, we had to wait in line for about an hour.
There were constantly people trying to cut the line, saying, "I'll be quick, I just need to get the tickets that I have reserved already," or "can you by my tickets for me? I'll be late in a couple of minutes..." and some people got so angry that it seemed like they would've killed somebody if it weren't a public space.
The person at the booth wasn't helping, either, stamping things with an extraordinary slowness, to the point where somebody cracked the window in anger (accidentally). It was a fun hour.
We ended up having to wait three hours for our train, and so we walked around the station, finding an overpriced McDonalds selling burgers for 40 yuan (~$7) apiece. At one point my dad tried to sell his book to a bookseller booth, calling some executive high up in the company.
When we got on the train, we found that it was pretty much empty, so we were able to run around and do whatever. We found that each row of seats had a lever at the bottom that enabled people to turn the whole row 180 degrees, so we kept trolling each other by turning either our own or the other person's seat.
And that's how our journey to Huangshan concludes. Thanks for reading through this absurdly long post (if you did), and keep tuned for more crazy stuff like this.
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