Huangshan Part 1 (7-28)

Sunday I traveled by bus to Tongkou, the town at the base of Huangshan, Yellow Mountain. I was able to purchase a ticket on the same bus leaving Hongzhou as my original ticket. At least I knew what time to go to the station and didn’t have to wait a long time. The trip took 3.5 hours and went through, around and over the lush, green mountains.

When I was walking to my hotel, Simon stopped to see if I needed help. He has a restaurant that has an English menu and name. So I decided I’d eat there that evening. At the hotel, I relaxed in the room for a couple hours. Then I went out to walk around the town. The first thing I noticed was the granite mountain behind me. Low clouds were moving in front of it, changing its appearance every half minute. Next I walked through the town area, which is full of cafes and stores selling snack foods. Food for the tourists is big business here. People were purchasing bagfuls of snacks and instant noodles to take up the mountain. Finally, I went to Simon’s restaurant to eat. When I was almost finished, he arrived. In addition to the restaurant, he also works at a travel agency in the next town. He learned English by talking to his customers over the past 15 years and speaks quite fluently and with very little Chinese accent. He helped me plan traveling to my next destination, which he made sound complicated. He also thought it was too far—about three hours, which is not so far in China—and very touristic. He tried to get me to change my plans, I think so I could book something through him. I paid his agency to purchase a bus ticket and agreed to pay him to drive me to the bus station in the next town. But I kept my plans as I had put a lot of thought into choosing where I wanted to go and wasn’t ready to make changes without a lot of consideration, which there wasn’t time for.

The staff at the hotel desk didn’t speak English. One man seemed to know a little, but the women didn’t speak it at all. When I was trying to ask about leaving my luggage while I stay on the mountain, a high school boy offered to help. He did quite well. The woman used him to tell me that the hotel shuttle would leave for the local bus station at 7:00 AM. It was nice of her to give me that information which I wouldn’t have had if the boy hadn’t helped.

Monday I headed up the mountain. I left the hotel at 7:00 and arrived at the top via cable car at 10:00. First I took the hotel shuttle to the bus station where I got in line for a bus to the cable car. Then I got in line to purchase a cable car ticket. When I was heading to the next line, I noticed a man selling walking sticks and, remembering how much I liked my bamboo walking stick on Emeishan last year, I purchased one and then joined the line to go up. This took 1.5 hours. Fortunately, I could read while I waited and kept my place in the “line.” Most of the time it was a pushing mass with people as close as they could be to each other so no one else could push ahead. After a while, there were barriers dividing the group so the line could be only two people wide. This reduced the pushing. 

There was a commentary in Chinese and English on the way up, but the only bit I understood was that the cable cars transport 2000 people per hour.

When we arrived at the top, the mountain was in a cloud—no visibility at all. It reminded me of arriving at the top of the mountain in Zhongjiajie last year. 

Except on Huangshan the clouds moved faster and after ten minutes there was good visibility. 

It was fun to watch the mountains play peak-a-boo as I walked toward the hotel. 

Sometimes they would change every 15 seconds as the clouds moved around. 

The atmosphere provided by the moving clouds is one of the things the mountain is famous for and that is often featured in paintings.

At noon I checked into the hotel and went to my dormitory room for six women. 

When I entered, the women and girls there cheered. They were two sisters and their teen-age daughters. The older girl will be in 10^th grade and speaks English pretty well, especially for her age. She said she and her friends love English and speak English with each other. I was impressed. Her English is better than that of some of the English majors at the university. The family had instant noodle cartons for lunch and gave me one. Then it was time to rest. After getting up early and waiting so long and walking for a couple hours, I was ready for a rest. Another woman arrived while we were resting and left quickly.

At 2:00, the standard time to end the lunch break, we all headed out. We started out walking together, which was nice as it got me going the right direction. Then I was told to go ahead because they had to wait for one of the men. I didn’t see them again until I arrived back in the room in the evening. I got a little confused about the plan the girl had shown me on the map and went on a different trail for a bit. When I reached the cable car down (a different one than I’d gone up on), I realized that wasn’t where I wanted to be and headed back to the other trail.

The destination of the afternoon was Xihai Grand Canyon, a trail that loops around an area with magnificent views. There were many people on the trail, but it was never crowded and sometimes I was walking alone. It wasn’t always well marked at junctures. Sometimes when there was a sign with a map, I had trouble relating what was on the sign’s map to the map I had purchased. I asked for assistance several times throughout the afternoon. 

The trail went up and around and through the mountain. 

Looking back, I realized that what I thought was a path on the mountain was actually a path attached to the side of the cliff. 

The views were stunning.

After a while the trail went down and down and down. I was really glad to eventually see signs pointing toward a cable ropeway. I was surprised to see that there is a cable ropeway because it wasn’t on the maps. By this time I was walking mostly alone. There was a couple who looked about my age and had less idea about where they were going than I did. We had passed each other several times. At one point we looked at a sign trying to decide which way we wanted to go. My map was a little helpful and we agreed on a direction. Walking down, I was glad to see the cableway tracks at the bottom becoming closer. Eventually the couple and I ended out on the same cable ropeway. A lot of people were waiting for it to arrive. 

This cable ropeway has one long car with three sections for people to stand in; so we all could crowd in and go up at the same time.

At the top of the cable ropeway, we still had to walk uphill for fifteen more minutes. After that, I was happy to see that the trail went mostly down until I reached the hotel. 

Soon it was 7:00 and the sun was setting. I could see on the map that there was still a long way to go to get to the hotel. Fortunately, others were also headed that direction. At one intersection, it wasn’t clear which way to go. I asked a woman and she pointed to a man. He was using his GPS to determine which direction we needed to go. We stayed close to each other the rest of the way. When I arrived back in the room at 7:40, the family was happy to see me, as they had been worried. They had returned about twenty minutes before I did. Lights went out at 9:00, and some people were already sleeping then.