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After arriving at about 6-7am, we avoided the touts and grabbed a dumpling and shredded rice breakfast opposite the train station. We then went back to the touts and jumped on a bus to tangkoe where we were greater by a mr ho who told us we should stay at his hotel. Turns out this is the guy the lonely planet recommended for accommodation and/or storing luggage so we took him up on the offer.
Mr ho then dropped us off at the bus station and we headed to the south entrance of huangshan (yellow mountains). We elected to do the hike in the opposite direction to that recommended by lonely planet as Wednesday was the only forecast sunny day and despite being longer an harder, the views on the western path were meant to be better.
JP, Morgan and I set off at 11:15 and made it to the hotel area after 6-7 hours of climbing stairs. The views were amazing and the SLR got a huge workout. As Caucasians we were also the clear rarity on the mountains. This also led to numerous pictures being taken of us doing karate kid and other poses on rocks or the edge of cliffs. The number of carved stairs were amazing especially near the numerous peaks that we climbed.
We eventually made it to the hotel area and checked into a triple room in the white cloud hotel (after realizing that it was the bai yun hotel).
We settled in and after a bit of a pillow fight/trying to turn bed decorations into clothes to account for the fact that we each only brought up one (now sweaty) t-shirt each. We then set out to grab some beers (max 3.3% alcohol) and found a nice boulder to watch the sunset. Again, we were the trend setters and soon the boulder had another 15-20 people.
After sunset we went to the hotel restaurant and ordered dumplings and fried noddles. They were more expensive than usual but after seeing porters carrying up >100kg each of supplies, it probably wasn't a ripoff.
After Morgan got busted trying to steal a chair dressing, we grabbed some more beers and retired to our room to watch half of the movie "the net" and we crashed out by 11, having set our alarm for 4:15am to catch the sunrise.
After not enough sleep we stumbled out of bed and walked up further stairs to a lookout which was packed with chinese tourists. We managed to find good vantage points on precarious boulders and watch a sunrise in which the sun was concealed by fog for all but about 10 seconds. Glad to see at least some of the sunset we went back to bed til 11am.
Setting off, we decended the eastern stairs which were shorter and full of porters lugging up massive loads. JP and I tried to help a couple of porters carry their load balanced on each end of a bamboo stick but neither of us could do more than lift it a few inches off the ground. Actually taking a step was beyond us, giving us much respect for the porters.
We made our way to the eastern entrance by around 3:30 and after a late apple and egg lunch jumped on a bus to the huangshan hot springs. After failing to negotiate the price down from $25, we stripped down to our bathers and entered the hot springs garden which was reminiscent of a japenese garden overlooking a deep valley and with numerous hot springs, each about 42C and infused with different herbs and other things (favorites were the coffee spring, the red wine spring and champagne and orange spring). The rain also picked up making the springs a refreshing contrast.
Having tried all the springs we were about to leave at 7:30 when we were offered free food (cakes and fruit) which was a nice surprise and pleasant to eat in a rotunda sheltering us from the storm.
We then grabbed a taxi and headed back to mr ho's hotel, had a delicious meal and headed to bed, sleeping with the windows open to the pattering rainfall and thunder.
We awoke around 6:30, showered, packed and ate noodles and dumplings before jumping on a bus to heife that mr ho arranged for us.
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