Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sightseeing binge

After resting from our Huangshan climb, we took a day trip to see Hongcun, a Huizhou village near Huangshan, and the Mukeng bamboo forest.  Both sites were featured in the movie, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Hongcun was picturesque and beautiful.  Also, very touristy.  When it comes to travel in China, I prefer a more off-the-beaten-path experience, but it was also so refreshing to just be a tourist for the day and meander the streets for a couple hours.

 

Walking through Hongcun, we noticed a high pagoda that would lend itself to an excellent vantage point of the village.  Turns out the pagoda is part of a B&B owned by a family.  We inquired about going up to the pagoda and the owner said we could if we each paid 5 yuan.  He would prepare some tea for us when we returned.  We took the deal.

After Hongcun we drove a couple kilometers to the Mukeng bamboo forest.  Walking through the forest felt like walking through another world.  At eye level you would only see bamboo trunks.  An upward gaze would be met with a feathery canopy of leaves.

 

We hiked around for a couple hours and then zip lined across the valley to a village lunch spot.  Finally, to top off an already awesome day, we discovered a haunted house in the middle of the bamboo forest.  Random?  Yes.  We had to do it.

Huangshan

We arrived in Huangshan Shi (Yellow Mountain city) at about 5am and had to kill some time before we could check into our hostel.  It was still dark out, but we found a little restaurant with warm baozi (steamed buns) and hard boiled eggs.  We spent the rest of the day napping, exploring the town and local park, and preparing for our climb.

New friend, Boni

The following morning we woke up at 5:30am to take a bus to the town near the base of the mountain.  The reality of traveling to Huangshan over the National Holiday became all too clear has we queued up in a 3 hour line for the 20 minute bus ride to the trail head.

Yellow hats = tour group

Once we started the ascent, I had to adjust my hiking expectations because we were surrounded by people for the entire climb.  This was not going to be the peaceful and calming hike that I thought it would be.  We were surrounded by a new kind of energy and once I accepted the presence of my hundreds of hiking buddies, it was cool to feel part of this giant upward climb of China's most esteemed mountain.

Huangshan is huge.  Once you reach the top, you have access to all kinds of trails leading to peaks, view points and gorges.  We planned on spending a night on the mountain so we could cover more ground on top, but even with an extra day of hiking, we had to pick and choose what we wanted to see.  To escape the crowds on the top of the mountain, we headed straight for a trail that seemed less traveled and were pleasantly surprised to have the path mostly to ourselves.

Sunset over the mountains

Fairy Bridge- our destination and turnaround point

We didn't arrive at our summit hotel until after dark; I had to use my headlamp for the final stretch.  At our summit hotel, we slept in dorm style rooms.  My other roommates were friendly and helped me plan out our next day itinerary.  The following morning we woke up at 4:30 and joined hundreds of other climbers to catch the sunrise.  Then we headed straight for the West Sea Canyon hike- a grueling and amazing down and up hike in a gorge.

We finished our Huangshan experience by taking the long and scenic way down the mountain.  Once we reached the base, my legs were completely shot.  The thing about hiking Huangshan is every hike involves stairs.  Our 2 day hiking trip turned out to be a 2 day stair master work out!  Every step was absolutely worth it- Huangshan was breathtaking.

Standing tickets only

The first week of October was China's National Holiday.  Fellow foreign English teacher, Shane, and I traveled to Anhui province to climb China's most sacred mountain, Yellow Mountain.

Traveling by train in China is convenient and affordable, so about a week before we left on our trip, we bought our train tickets.  I learned many lessons while traveling over China's National Holiday to one of China's biggest attractions, one of which was that one week is not enough time to buy train tickets in advance.  The result: we could only buy round trip standing tickets.  That meant for both 12 hour legs of our trip, we did not have seats.

Standing tickets are not uncommon in China, people will often travel long, cross-country distances with standing tickets.  Standing tickets are not as terrible as they sound; there are ways to work the system: (1) Buy a small, fold-up stool that you carry in your luggage and find a free space to set up shop.  (2) Periodically peruse the train cars for open seats, especially right after scheduled stops, maybe you'll get lucky.  (3) Find the dining car and pay money to sit there overnight.  We used a combination of all 3 strategies and were able to have seating for most of the trip.  Both long train rides were overnight, so the dining car option was clutch.  On our return trip we sat at a table with a couple Chinese guys and we played card games until 2am.

Since most of the country has this week off for holiday, the trains were packed with people traveling.  People were sitting everywhere- on the ground, on their luggage, in smoking nooks, on the sinks.  Walking down the aisles, especially with our big backpacks, was a nightmare and I cringe to think about all the people I bumped into with my backpack.  With that being said, the friendliness of people here continues to surprise and impress me.  One Chinese family let me set up my stool in their seating area.  We talked for hours, they gave me fruit and we exchanged contact information before parting ways.  I hope to meet up again.  Another group of men gave up one of their seats for me after they noticed I was standing for awhile.  Not the most comfortable method of travel, but we saved money and made new friends.  All in all, total success.