Where are John and Kara?: A visit to Huang Shan, Anhui Province, China

Ellen and Helen on the bus towards Huangshan

This blog centers on our recent four night and three day trip to Huangshan in the Anhui Province over the Chinese Dragon Boat festival weekend.

A quick break stop

As China's most famous mountain range, Huangshan is as spectacular as the guidebooks promote and as the old legends suggest!

Based in the hot and humid southern region of China, Huangshan was imperially named China's "yellow mountain" around 750AD. Our handy guidebook told us that Huangshan is rock that was once under the sea and was uplifted then eroded away over time by glaciers. This has created a very craggy type rockface.

Delicious fishy and sour tasting tofu

Now with over 15 million vistors each year the mountain sees its fair share of tourists. We decided to head there before it got too hot, before the tourist season picked up but also because it was a long weekend for us! China celebrated June 2nd with a national holiday "the dragon boat festival".

To get to the mountains was a bit of a mission. Thankfully Ellen and Helen agreed to join us and then did quite a significant part of the organisation and prep work. We helped them prepare the right attire!

A small fish pond in the mountains

To get to Huangshan we first went to Nanjing the capital city of Jiang su Province via a 12hour fast train - Nanjing was also the capital of China for 6 dynasties and the name translates to south capital.

From Nanjing it was a short 4 hour bus trip to Yun Hai, Tang Kou village based in the foothills of Huangshan.

Catching the long distance buses in China are really quite a horrid experience. The driver is 'the boss'.

Sometimes (like our particular bus) your unlucky enough to get a 'boss' who enjoys chain smoking the length of the trip and no one dears open a window to let the hot outside air in.

John taking a break on the way up

After arriving and settling down at a local hotel, we toured the village (which specialises in tea) on foot before enjoying a dinner of some surprisingly delicious local fishy and sour tasting tofu (which comes recommended by the President... or so they say). Hmm...

The following morning we were up at 6am and after consuming our 5 yuan breakfast of pickled vegetables, black tea eggs (eggs boiled in salty tea for 48hours) and sweet bread we boarded a government bus to take us to the mountain entrance.

The first part of our hike was predictably all up hill!! The mountainous park has over 60,000 steps carved into the hillside and for the first several hours we walked and walked then climbed and climbed quite a few of them.

Chinese pine tree- like a large bonsai

The forest and tropical bush was just stunning, with such greenery and an array of different fauna. We saw wild squirrel and birds and not long after wild monkeys!

Actually they were the biggest monkeys we had ever seen and they weren't happy monkeys! (Think small gorilla).

We were terrified! They were probably after our food so when Kara said grab your food (that was dangling in plastic bags off our backpacks) to everyone, Ellen panicked and dropped hers!!! John saved it, but after that we didn't stop to take photos, we bolted. Looking back now it's a little funny imagining four grown adults sprinting away (upstairs) from potential man eating monkeys.

When the fog rolled in

After a few hours as we neared the top a huge fog rolled in. A thick, wet and humid fog. Our visibility dropped to only several meters and it remained like that for the rest of the afternoon.

The fog made the mountain feel very mystical and spooky because you could see it wisping around trees and because the undercurrent was warm. You can see in the picture how thick the fog was! It did make the mountain views somewhat bland, actually all we could see was white!

We can't really be sure of whats behind John

As we climbed, after another hour we got to (as the sign pointed out) the best photo spot on the mountain, however all we saw was white... spooky, spooky white nothing.

The fog slowly dissipated in the late afternoon and we did manage to get in a few better snaps.

In fact it was really quite magical, with the low hanging clouds and the beautiful green of the trees.

As we toured the mountains we travelled with two maps. An English version and a Chinese version.

Standing beside a Tiger pine

It was an absolute hoot reading all the translated names.

We visited 'falling rock from sky, trutle peak, the flower grown out of a writing bush rock, bookcase peak, fire old men peak and the place of immortal drying boot'.

Beautiful view down the gully

John taking a moment to admire the view

We spent the night at the top of the mountain in what was advertised as actually a fancy pansy four star hotel. In reality it was small 8 dorm bed room but it had hot showers.

Frankly, we were all so nackered after 10 hours hiking and after consuming a bowl of instant noodles, it didn't matter. We all crashed out by 8pm.

Morning sunrise at 5.10am

Early the next morning we woke (at precisely 4.30am) and in the dark, with a herd of people, climbed up a small hill peak to watch the sunrise. As the sun neared the horizon a very large number of tourists congregated on a very small flat rock cliff to take photos... and then more people came... and then more.

We remember one particular women who was so insistent on getting to the front to take the clearest photos that she was willing and attempted to push people out of her way (never mind the steep cliff face). Considering most people hadn't had breakfast and were tired, her behaviour didn't go down well.

This aside, it really was wonderful and it was our first sunrise in China.... in case you are wondering, the sun rises very early and is always up and about long before us.

Our second day wasn't any easier than our first day. After our early start we returned to the hotel (slash dormitory) packed up and headed off.

The first stop was Huangshan's highest peak 'Lotus Peak' shaped like a the lotus flower, fortunately for us the passsage was closed off for maintenance. For if it had been open and we had climbed it, there is no way we would have made it to the summit of the second mountain peak 'Celestial Peak'.

Celestial peak is renowned for being the steepest mountain to climb and it was literally 1km of small steep, steep uphill (no winding, no turns, no breaks- just up!). John (perhaps slightly dehydrated?) counted each step and after 1050 steps we reached a narrow (and what we thought was the top) summit.

Morning view from the hotel

But it wasn't and we kept climbing up and up! Before hitting a just-as-steep (if not steeper and more narrower) downhill climb.

We really missioned it up however and made excellent time. The downhill through the gully was very relaxing as we passed through temples and saw several small waterfalls. We saw one more monkey but he seemed friendly.

We were lucky to return back in plenty of time and had a very late lunch at the hotel in Tang Kou village.

She's on top of the world!

John then left his phone behind and realised on the bus back to Nanjing. Eek. We spent three hours in Nanjing exploring the city and jumped on our second overnight and surprisingly peaceful train to Beijing at 9pm!