Thursday, March 12, 2015

Anhui, China: Huangshan

So we took a bus from Hangzhou to Huangshan. As usual, the main tourist street, deliberately held back in time, was such a draw. Banded with 3 locals and a Taiwanese from the hostel, and got scammed by a sneaky man who offered us an 'alternative' route up the mountain (read, free). We climbed quite a while (harrowing climb) only to realise that the hole in the fence had been mended and the dude who drove us up and pointed the way was uncontactable thereafter. These enterprising youths weren't annoyed with the expensive entrance fees, but more so with how the prices have inflated over the years. But it was an adventure (despite the scam), you'd realise that the fees generally went into the maintenance of the mountains (not bad), the views were good (but commercialised), and the company, excellent. We almost stayed overnight up the mountain for the sunrise but decided against it because if it rained, there would be no worthy sunrise (oh it's also cold and expensive)! And I wished human effort will eventually be worth more than a cable car ride (imagine porters carrying tons of water and what-not having to jostle with tourists up the mountain)! If I had known better, I would have travelled light and bought something somewhere along the way.

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Got my name chop done, for the second time (first at Hangzhou)

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I'm not so particular about the stone

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Rock hard candy

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Local recommendation - dumplings (big), wanton (small) - stuffings vary from vegetables to pork to prawn depending on the province/dialect

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Perfect for a cold night

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Purchases

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Tons of fancy names for rocks

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Totally panting up the mountain

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It's a hotel

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Our buddies

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The Sea of Cloud descends

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Cable Car down because climbing down is hard on the knees and we are late

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Restaurant dinner - because we deserve it

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The spread for 3 (with a new found Taiwanese friend from before)

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More exciting mountain climbing in China - Mt Hua (Huashan)


On to Shanghai!

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