HuangShan

Yellow Mountain (HuangShan) was originally called Black Mountain. All the rocks there are black granite, so it was so obvious to call it Black mountain. And than one day Yellow Emperor visited Black Mountain and liked it so much that ordered to change it's name to Yellow Mountain. So easy...

Wikipedia says that is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. The area is well known for its scenery, sunsets, peculiarly-shaped granite peaks, Huangshan Pine trees, and views of the clouds from above. Huangshan is a frequent subject of traditional Chinese paintings and literature, as well as modern photography. Today, it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of China's major tourist destinations.

From the above surelly the last one is correct. It was so fucking crowded there that if I did not see that I would not believe that. 2h line to get to the cable car, people traffic jam on the paths at the top. Nightmare. To make thigs worst it was raining all day long, it was foggy and not plesant at all. So I did not see even a single stunning view, what I regret so much, cause from some pics that I've seen on the internet it looks really beautiful. Sepecially now, during autumn it must be so cool there, with all those colorful leaves. But it was obvious that it'll be raining. All my recent hiking trips were in rain, fog and snow. Same here, fog, rain and crowd. Except that facts it was good weekend.

We've met on Friday at the South Railway Station: 5 Swiss/German guys and me. I've met three of them one evening in Captain's Bar and just out of the blue asked them if they are going to see Yellow Mointain, and they said that they plan trip for the weekend, so I've decided to join them.

We've 5 hours trip to Huang Shan city talking, laughing, drinking and waiting for a bus to make a stop, so that we can go to toilet.

Trip crew

In HuangShan City beer is drunk from bowls

HuangShan dishwasher machine

There we got to the hotel, which was rather expencive as for China, but anyway we were paying 50RBM each. I don't exactly know why, but I was not complaining, it was usually price that I've been paying for 10ppl dorm.

We went for a late dinner to one of the local "restaurants", there we happened to be attraction for local people. They wanted to drink with us, take photos and finally dance. Of course there were only man that wanted to dance, so I was the only one dancing, but in fact it was funny.

Chicken leg

Dancing classes in HuangShan

Is it why they call HuangShan Yellow Mountain?

On Saturday we've met our guide Jojo (first we did not want a guide, but somehow finally we agreed and it was ok, not too expencive and she was a nice Chinese girl and in fact it was very helpful to have her with us), had breakfast and took two buses to get to Yuping Cableway, where we had to wait two hours to get on cable car (in the mean time we had an idea to climb the stairs, but it was impossible to return/sell tickets that we've just bought five minutes earlier). There we've climbed Lotus Peak (the highest point in HuangShan - 1864), Bright Peak and headed to the XiHai hotel, had dinner and spend whole late evening/early night chatting and drinking awful chinese vodka.

2h waiting line

On the lotus Flower Peak

- What a nice saying, what a pity that noone has any respect for that and they throw away rubbish everywhere

In a hotel

Pillow fight

We at the hotel, motel, holiday inn

On Sunday we got up to late for breakfast (I guess that the breakfast time is till 9 only) so we ate what we had in our bags and went to see some other more (Beginning to Believe Peak - legend says it is the point where a skeptical visitor first realized that Huang Shan is every bit as mind blowing as advertised) or less interesting spots (Tiger Pine, Lovers' Bridge) and went down using Eastern Steps (6.5km of walking down by stairs) to Cloud Valley Temple for where we took shuttle bus to HuangShan City (also called Tunxi) from where we took 5h bus ride to Shanghai.

Black Tiger Pine 

(if woman has photo under that tree it means she
wants to be/will be independant, and if man has photo there it means he
wants to be/will be strong and brave)

Smoking, No smoking

One of the fabulous chinese translations - No naked fire. Did they mean: No open flames?

 HuangShan City

Those stairs are used by porters to carry goods to the top. They have pole on their backs and bags hanging from two ends of that sticks. We were trying to judge how heavy that stuff is, and our estimation is that, they carry between 60 and 80 kg. It is cheaper to pay them, than to pay for the cable car. They are paid 1.7RMB per kg. 

Porter (lucky shot)

 It was not hiking trip that I usually do, with a lot of hiking from the early morning, it was rather "chinese type" hiking. Take cable car, take photos with all the important things (pine trees, lovers' bridge, rocks) and go back, but it was still ok. Prolly on my own I would get mad with that crowd of ppl and would give it up, but it was fun with the guys even though it was Sunday tourist trip.

Today I'm heading to Hangzhou for 2 days of chill out at the West Lake.