Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Another ridiculously early morning - this time at 05h45. We refused to participate in the lame "pre-huangshan" American loser photo that was being taken outside the hostel - a good decision now that we have spoken to them and realize they are totally weird. With minutes to go on the bus to the base of the mountain, a Chinese man next to Sam thought it was appropriate to vom everywhere. The window was right there, but no, that would have been far too nice for his fellow travellers (we are writing this 2 days after this incident and have seen him about 4 times since - he thinks we are scared of him!). His wife then begain to gag in Sam's direction but fortunately holds it in. Chinese vomit king then gets off bus at his stop, but kindly leaves the dripping bag of vomit behind which spread violently over the next 10 minutes, trapping Josh in the back seat. Arriving at the base of the mountain Josh leaped across the lake of chunder only to have to walk back past where the bus first stopped to find a bank for cash. Breakfast at the base of the mountain was plain noodles - awesome. It actually was, this isn't sarcastic. We bought snacks for the climb and went to mountain. At base of the mountain we had to perform military spy operation to all get student prices despite having only one student card between us. This saved us a grand total of £1.50 and only took an extra 20 minutes of our time. The excitement of a western toilet also led us all to take a visit but apparently only George was successful - Sam will vouch for this. We started climbing at 10h30.
The route starts off with a nice walk past a stream and a waterfall. It was very relaxed and feeling good, we decided to take the "challenging" route. Worst decision ever. The fact that no one else was walking in the same direction as us i.e. UP the mountain should have been a sign, but being the cocky t*** we are, we thought we'd be fine. IT WAS HELL. The total journey length was 19km - this is over a half marathon but in vertical form. After creating several new waterfalls down the mountain side from the sweat pouring off us, we decided to strip off our top halves which the locals were more than appreciative of. Every stop on the way presented an opportunity for the Chinese people to whip out their Nikons and get a few snaps of the fascinating white people. When we first broke the clouds, it was a good feeling. We stopped for lunch which consisted of tuc crackers, oreos and some random cakes filled with orange then continued along up to two major summits which were ridiculously hard to navigate. We almost died several times climbing the tallest peak thanks to the complete lack of Chinese Health & Safety - barriers are not a requirement for a walkway 1800m high looking over a vertical cliff face….Sam broke two walking sticks - meathead. We then got bored of people trying to talk English to us and decided it was racist to assume that we were just because we were white so started talking French and claiming that we were from Paris. This would have been perfect if Josh hadn't had been wearing a Great Britain rucksack.
After a minor rain shower we reached the site of the hotel. It looked AWESOME! As we approached the hotel we see signs for the 4* luxury establishment grow larger. The reception was grand and air conditioned with wifi - perfect! After handing over our passports, the receptionist points to a man to show us our rooms. It was all so smart and smooth and we were excited to finally lie down in a niceWe were surprised to be led right back out of the building and taken on a minor trek which ended in a rate-infested prison. This may seem like an exaggeration but after having seen well over 15 fully grown rats around our accommodation and being forced into a tiny cell of a room with 6 other fully grown chinese smoking addicts insistent on eating the worst smelling food they can find, you will agree that this description is in fact an understatement. Adament not to spend any time in the room ,we sacke dhte idea of a nap and went to the hotel reception to live in the false pretense that this was in fact our home. Sunset came and we left the hotel to watch it. Very nice. Apparently china had been hit by severe inflation in the 8 hours it had taken us to ascend the mountain because food prices had soared to an absurd magnitude. A 20RMB pot noodle was all we could afford - a rather unsatisfying dinner. After very briefly considering returning to our room, we realized that rabies and cholera were not so fun and so took our laptops back into the hotel. After being thrown out of the bar for not buying any of the obsesnely priced drinks, we snuck round the hotel to found a random corridor with a plug where we have been sitting all night. After several hours squatting outside room 2005 and 2 visits from hotel secutiry it was obvious that the inhabitants were clearly suspicious. However staring blankly at the chinese (who are CLEARLY miming "why are you here") and after the hotel staff realized that we were providing a whole new tourist attraction for their establishment as several groups of chinese tourists came running back and forth to show their friends the bizarre specimens they had discovered, eventually led them to leave us alone. A few more cultural hours on facebook and another failed attempt at watvhing batman and we went to bed…well we tried to. The evening requires a whole blog entry for itself.
- comments