Huangshan

On the weekend before Christmas, Aidan and I travelled to Huangshan for a holiday, only for three nights, and when I say before christmas, I mean RIGHT before christmas, we got back at 12:05 on christmas morning.

This is because I booked the whole thing only a week before and so got really stupid flight times. We flew out on the Friday at 10:pm, and our return flight was at 11:0pm on the Monday Christmas Eve. This could have all been a nightmare, if it was in say, Europe, using Easy Jet, or, worse, Ryan Air. However, Shanghai Air is now my favourite short haul carrier. not only were tickets super cheap to buy only a week before (on Ctrip, Chinas equivalent to Lastminute.com, and so much better), but the flights were awesome too. No delays at all. People get on, the plane goes. No waiting for idiots in duty free or baggage handlers on strike like London.

Now I will just harp on a bit more about them - you swipe your passport, you get a ticket. You get on the plane. the plane goes. no lines. No nothing. Despite the fact that China has a billion people and so this should be a bit more hectic. It was fantastic. but the best bit was, that on the way back, the plane left at 11:05, 35 minutes early!!! and we got into Shanghai 35 minutes early! This is something I have never experienced on any other airline in my life.

Alright, now onto the actual trip.

Huangshan is located in Anhui province, and is only 1 hour flight from Shanghai. According to the CSR woman I met through work, it is the poorest province in China. however, it also has Huangshan, which is better known in the west as Yellow Mountin. This area is a crowd of peaks, 72 of which are named. they have really good names like "Monkey looking out at the Sea", "Beginning to Believe Peak" and "Lotus Brightness Apex". I wanted to go there because they are those mountains that you always think of when you think of China scenery. Green pine trees, craggy rock faces, ravines, all covered in mist. They are one of the most popular tourist destinations for chinese people, and during summer it would be crazy busy, so we went in winter when we could better appreciate the quietness and also because I really did want to see them when they were all misty.

We flew into Huangshan city, which is about 70km from the Huangshan mountains. The city is also called Tunxi, and we stayed there on the Friday night, and were up early the next morning to get to the mountains. Now, seeing as this place is a major tourist destination, and we were staying at a Holiday Inn Express, I had thought that there would be some English spoken. There wasn't. In fact, the whole weekend we didn't come across english speakers, except two other tourists. Now, seeing as I can't speak anything other than English, i am not expecting people to be able to speak English just for me, but it did make it a bit harder. Especially after all these people on the Lonely planet thorn tree, trip advisor, virtual tourist, etc. said it was easy to get around. Maybe they speak chinese. Or maybe it is easier in peak season.

Due to the language barrier, we ended up getting on a mini bus (which was actually a Tarago owned by locals, to drive locals to work at Huangshan). And it was old and dirty, and they were all smoking in it, and it was so grotty we couldn't see out the window. Eventually, we got to Tankou, which is at the foot of the mountains, and the minibus just kept circling the town, and then stopped for 15 minutes while the driver had something to eat, and eventually it was too much for aidan and he went off his brain, and no one cared, but eventually,...much later...we were dropped off just down the street from there, and got a taxi up to the cable car. I don't know what that whole trip was about, but at 2 GBP each for 70km I suppose it was ok.

Then we went up the cable car to the top of the mountain. It was sooo misty, that we couldn't see anything. So we weren't scared at all. It was a bit like that Crash Bandicoot level where you can only see two feet in front of him or something. On our return journey the next day we woudl see how truly incredible the scenery is from that Cable car, and how bloody far high up we were!!! very.

Up the top of the mountains, there are extremely well maintained trails (and lots and lots of steps) connecting all the peaks, the look outs, and the couple of hotels. aidan and I only had day packs, so it was super easy for us to walk around for a while until we found our hotel. it was beautiful and eerie, because there was so much mist. But at the same time, we cuoldn't really see all that much because of the mist. That evening however, the mist cleared, and we got to see out in the moonlight, which was absolutely beautiful, but impossible to capture on camera.

The next morning we rose at crack o dawn to go and see the sunrise, as recommended by all travel books. However, despite our efforts, and getting at the front of the lookout, the mist was so thick we could't see anything. By now I had seen enough mist and was getting quite disgruntled, so we went back to the room and had a nap. Then the Gods smiled, and as we woke up, the mist was clearing, adn so our second day was spent taking a million photo's of the awe inspiring views. amazing. like something from national geographic.

It was a lot of walking. Lots of stairs. By the morning, my legs were so sore. But you can't look tired or exhausted on the mountain because there are cosntantly men walking up all the stairs (no chairlift for them), carrying so much crap! like all the building materials, and hotel supplies, water and food and beer, and everything! they carry it all hanging across their back, and so it would just be so horrible to walk past them whinging or puffing when all I am carryign is a muesli bar and my camera!

After the stupid mini bus on the way to Huangshan, we decided to get a cab on the way back. So after going down the awesome chairlift, we caught a cab back to Huangshan, which cost less than 10GBP anyway. Then that night we walked around Tunxi old street, which is over a km long, and would have been beautiful if it wasn't full of stupid tourist crap shops. I don't know who is buying all this crap, but there was over one km of shops selling tea and statues and chinese calligraphy pictures. talk about market saturation.

The next day (after a night of being kept awake by chinese party in our hotel corridor), we hired a car for the day to take us around theancient villages of the area. Two of these we visited are UNESCO world heritage listed, they are called Xidi (sheedee) and Hongcun(Hoongtswun). They are about 40km from Tunxi, and we hired a car for the whole day to take us around, which cost less than 20GBP. Both of the villages you have to pay a couple of pounds to get in.
Hongcun was the more amazing of the two. The main feature of this village is water. It is centred around two ponds, both of which have the most reflective water ever, which means that the buildings and landscape are all reflected perfectly in them. Which looks amazing. Also, this village has a water system whereby water runs past every single house in the village, for use of everyoen. while this is clever it also hgrossed meout because, it meant that while some people are cleaning a dead chicken in there, some are cleaning their clothes, or vegetables, or fish, and it all just flows on. The water was really fast flowing though, so maybe it was ok. I am not sure.

The stupid thing is, these two towns are UNESCO heritage listed, so I am not sure how, but someone must be paying to have these towns looked after and kept clean. So, especially in Hongcun, you can really see where the edge of the town is, because beyond this point, there is rubbish EVERYWHERE. It is quite disgusting. Although Shanghai is quite clean, it is only because there are people employed to pick up rubbish. In China it seems that people are quite happy to throw rubbish on the ground anywhere. right outside their shop, out car windows, wherever. even though there are bins everywhere!

At least this keeps people employed I suppose.

So in conclusion, I would say that it is definitely worth going to Huangshan area at this time of year, with the only caveat being the lack of language skills by the locals. Also, three days is a really good amount of time to see the area.