Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Ah Hunagshan Mountain. This was a trial from the beginning.Those of you who have read Kaitlins blog on this mountain probably understand this already…
We arrived in Hunagshan city also named Tunxi (just to be diffiucult China seems to have multiple names for all the cities, all of them being hard to pronounce.) It probably didn't help that we decided to save some money and take the night long train ride from Nanjing on a hard seat either. This basically meant we got to sit on a hard cloth covered seat at a 90 degree angle for about 8 hours. You would think this would be fine but after about 40 minutes the seats become cunning torture devices, cutting off your circulation and not allowing you to lean (in any way) to become comfortable...
Around midnight a woman roled up with a cart full of toys which various passangers then bought. The toys were small plastic tops which played the tune Happy Birthday over and over again. And for some reason these people HAD to keep playing with them....for an HOUR AND A HALF!!! Until the toys ran out of batteries! Both me and Kaitlin are now scared for life... Never want to here that song again!
Once there we got an awesome hostel which we stayed in for one night and then we went up the mountain. Getting there was pretty easy, and we decided to ignore the cable car and take the western steps up. Not a bad plan, no matter what you think. I liked the walk, but unfortunatly Kaity was feeling under the weather, so was not too happy by the end. The top was a mad house. Filled with tour groups and lines just to use a trail. It wasn't really western tourists either, but a whole bunch of chinese ones. So this meant that they were kinda fascinated with me and Kait again. I think by the end of the first day we tallied 22 "hidden shots" and about 11 photos where people asked us to pose with them.
We decided to stay at the top where a single bed cost us 30 canadian in a roomful of other people. Since we were the first people there we got to pick the first beds and apparently got control over the singular room key...yeah it was dumb. After settling down for an afternoon nap we were awakened by a knock on the door and a REALLY angery chinese woman who barged in and started yelling at us and the room attedent. Me and Kait looked at eachother and kinda shruged, cause really what can you do when you have no idea what someone's saying? I guess the woman was upset that she had to share the room and we took the nicer beds.
The next day we did another hiking loop and decided to head on down. I have to say that the mountain itself was beautiful and not too difficult, but it does have a lot of stairs...
Now the real trial came on our way back...
We got to the bottom and figured out the bus to the main station at the foot of the mountain. At this point we still had to ge a hour ride back to the city, but we had no idea how to do it. Unfortuantly whenever we said we wanted to go to Hunaghan all the chinese people we asked thought we wanted back up the mountain (it's great that both the city and mountain have the same name...) And I think we totally butchered the pronounciation of Tunxi so that they looked at us blankly whenever we said it. After being directed in a circle by various people for an hour and a half we finally found a woman who would let us on her bus.
It ended up being a chinese tour group. So, after taking us back to the city we got taken to a chinese super market where we were given this ...well...warm goo like substance, apparently made from the trees on te mountain. It was surprisingly good. We then got taken to a small temple where no pictures were allowed and seemed to be only for the locals. It was really fun. Again me and kait kinda got swarmed by a bunch of people who wanted pics with us. (still weird by the way)
So, that about sums up Huangshan. The moral of this story is when in doubt join up with a chinese tour group...they have more fun, and they serve the best goo!
- comments