Hangzhou, a city of 6.6 million people, is famous for one attraction, its west lake. This was added as a UNISCO world heritage site just three days before we arrived there, the lake with its ancient bridges, stunning Leifeng Pagoda and unique ecosystem is considered to be a fine example of classical Chinese scenery. Dai left us after one night in Hangzhou, heading off to go hiking, whilst Rob and I spent two days walking round the lake admiring the human and natural scenery. It was quiet (at least by Chinese standards) and very scenic, greenery was everywhere from the trees which covered every path and surrounding road to banks of lilies extending into the lake. We saw the tomb of a Chinese General, Yue Fei, climbed the pagoda as well as visiting the interestingly named sites such as White Lotus Leaf and Red Carp pond. We covered a fair bit of ground, returning at night to our hostel where we sat down with some 60p 2.5% snow beer(all beer here is weak but generally tastes good) in the cat and bug infested hostel.
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| West Lake viewed from the lofty heights of Leifing Pagoda |
China, whilst extremely impressive, has been a bit frustrating at times.Although we should be speaking Chinese (we now do know three phrases, how much?, hello and thank you) people here don’t seem to understand hand signals. When we walked into the hostel restaurant on the morning and imitated eating they didn’t seem to understand we wanted food. Doing washing was a bit of a palaver, it was desperately needed in Hangzhou yet despite bringing them wet washed clothes they didn’t seem to get that we needed to dry them (it was through a stroke of luck that we found the drying room). However I must say the Chinese have been really friendly, saying hello randomly on the street and always seeming willing to help you out without expecting anything, unlike the money leaches of South East Asia.
Mistiming on our part meant our taxi from our hostel in Hangzhou arrived at the coach station just after 9:30, when we believed the coach would leave. Fortunately lonely planet was wrong with the times meaning we managed to get to Tangkou as planned. Tangkou is a small, alpine town, located near one of Chinas most famous mountains, Huang Shan. The mountain is a green, pine tree covered series of outcropping granite peaks. These have mystical names, or strange translations, such as “Beginning to believe peak”, “Stone Monkey gazing over the sea of clouds” and “flower blooming on a brush tip”. It is most spectacular when a duvet of clouds covers the mountain sides, leaving only the outcropping summits poking through like islands. Huang Shan’s scenery was actually the inspiration behind the Hallelujah Mountains in James Cameron’s Avatar.
Our plan to climb the eastern steps was thwarted immediately. As the path was closed for maintenance we had to drift up 1000meters through pure mist in a cable car (walking would have been rewarding but I confess I was quite pleased at avoiding the exercise, unlike Robert who was disappointed at missing the climb). At the top we spent the few hours left before sundown walking around some of the viewing points. The weather was cloudy, with a drifting mist turning visible scenery invisible in under a minute. The picture was very different, to what I have seen before in mountains. Where we imagined the top of the mountain to be uninterrupted nature, spare a worn down footpath, it was in fact completely developed, almost shamefully like a theme park. The mountain was covered in paved stone walkways, wooden railings protecting anyone from falling off, with man made viewing points jutting out over the mountains edge. Litter bins were everywhere with employees collecting rubbish and sweeping the paths for the masses ( I will expand on that in a bit).
After seeing some impressive jagged peaks, complete with patchy mist we headed off to our hostel, which we had cleverly booked through our bilingual receptionist back in Hangzhou. However something seemed to have been lost in translation with the receptionist(or maybe she was just dippy) as the 30yuan room she said was available didn’t seem to exist and we ended up spending 120yuan each(£12) for a bed in a dorm at the Shilin Hotel- the same as we were paying way back in Australia.
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| Sunset at "Stone Money Gazing Over the Sea of Clouds" |
The cost of everything on the mountain was inflated; dinner was £5 at the hotel, for a bowl of what were essentially super noodles. From one of the supermarkets we bought some muffins for breakfast the next morning (the supermarket alongside a police station and Bank of China branch made up but a part of the unfortunate development on this natural wonder). .With little to do that evening we went and saw a slightly cloud obscured, but none the less spectacular sunset at one of the peaks(the fact that this seemed to me to be just another sunset suggests I have been traveling a little long).
The next day we set off on a 15km walk down the mountains western steps. At the start there were only a few tourists alongside the involuntarily tanned blokes lugging supplies of cold drinks and people chairs (see picture) around. The rollercoaster like ups and downs of the footpaths led us to several viewpoints most of which were completely obscured by mist. However as the walk went on the weather slowly cleared, allowing some good vistas of the surrounds . We reached a metrological station around half twelve where we encountered the first mass of tourists. There were literally hundreds of Chinese faced yellow ponchos milling around here, all in huge tour groups which they seem to love. The tour leaders barked orders, painfully amplified by speakers on their trousers. Every Chinese person had a walking stick, I suppose to make them look like hikers, though some of their footware showed they didn’t have a clue. The number of people walking around in smart business shoes or flimsy plimsoles was astonishing. It was funny on the way down watching them walking barefoot and covered in blisters. A shambles. From then on as we slowly made our way along the footpaths (slowly as we were in a human traffic jam for the whole time), the number of people increased, until we were literally at a standstill. We climbed the highest peak in the region, lotus flower, partly in the spirit of exploration, but equally to escape the hordes. Even this had steps all the way up, making the climb tiring but very easy. Even at the summit, 1800meters above sea level, there was a bloke selling drinks, as well as tacky gold medals which the Chinese were snapping up. We continued descending the mountain through the receeding mist ala the Olympic monkey, revealing more fantastic scenery. Eventually we squeezed through the crowds near the second cable car station and from then on, the few hours of the walk downstairs were much quieter people wise.
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| Masses on the Mountain |
The numbers in china are just so staggering; living in London can only give limited preparation for such crowds. The scary bit is the numbers of everything that needs to be made, all those hundreds of millions of digital cameras and mobile phones that everybody has, all shoes and tshirts that everybody wears.
