Talking of food, I have gone completely non vegetarian. After spending almost my first 10 hungry hours in this country, I had the following options in the Hongkong-Shanghai flight: Beef Rice, Pork Rice and Fish Rice. Vegan food? Sorry what’s that. Oh well, easy to choose for me. Fish- Rice it had to be. I have had fish twice in my life, I never really liked it but I was too hungry to give any thought about my Brahmin genes.So I get back to my Fish Rice, open it, greeted by a strong odor, just short of pungent, and I don’t understand why they call Pasta as rice. My hunger did not leave me any option apart from eating it. A bite of the fish and immediately i am done. I cannot express my discomfort in words folks. But it forced me to limit my meal to the yoghurt. I later on found out from some people that what we just had Eel (Oh yeah, that same fish you saw in the Discovery Channel which gives electric shocks and looks frighteningly clo se to a snake). Well, this short introduction does not mean that in China people only eat cockroaches and crocs. It’s a beautiful country with very friendly, hospitable people. I was in a big dilemma before coming here and the though I decided to skip my skepticism and jump over the Himalayas on this side of the world, today I don’t regret it. It gave me an opportunity to see new people, new places & new culture and yes, new food. I found good company here and 4 months into China, with friends, I have explored almost all of Dalian, the beautiful city I live in. They call it the romantic city of China and I can see why it is called so. It’s a charming experience.
Well, recently I travelled to Mount HuangShan which is also called as the Yellow Mountains. It is a UNESCO world heritage site, speaking of which means that the UNESCO recognizes and preserves sites of outstanding cultural or natural importance to the common heritage of Humanity. I could see these mountains had all the grandeur and natural splendor to be listed as one.In the midst of whole lot of evening traffic in the Dalian software Park, we managed to get 2 taxis and reached the airport fairly on time. Met KP there and finally we were a group, 6 in total. Me, KP, Sam, SK, VJ and A. Well, the pangs of excitement started almost instantaneously with one of the airport staff telling us that the flight we booked does not exist. There was no flight with the number we booked. Some confusion lingering for sometime, it turned out that our flight has a
different number. All’s well. In the middle on all this Sam and SK had a small discussion if they can put SK’s RMB 2 cigarette lighter in Sams bag, but somehow Sam got very confused if its allowed and did not put the lighter in his bag. With a heavy heart, SK gave me lighter to dump in a bin nearby. Did that, perfect throw, straight in the bin hole in the first go.
We reached Hangzhou at around 11 PM. VJ & KP took lot of pains to make the taxi driver understand the place where our hotel was, its difficult getting around here without Chinese, my only solace was English Chinese dictionary I bought last week at the bookstore. However, I dint have to use it, thanks to KP and VJ. We finally reached the hotel at around 1 with two very shy and “smiling all the time” receptionists greeting us with welcomes. KP somehow tried conversing in English but go a no for almost everything. No Internet, no drinking water in rooms and no business card for the hotel. Welcome to the three star hotel. Arun bought a few cans of beer which tasted like Honey. It took me about 10 minutes to change my opinion, from good to bad. Then I could drink it anymore. Finally, dozed off at around 2, we had to take an early bus to Mount HuangShan in the morning.
The first day of the trip!!!
DAY 1 : Mount Huangshan, Yellow Mountain
I woke up early with a bad stomach, it might be the honey beer and at around 7 am all six of us were there at the bus station. Some guys were already eating eggs, some had corn, some had noodles. Well, I was hungry but the thought of eating something and then rushing off to the loo kept me away from trying anything. Arun suggested eating bread helps, and so I had that. Lot of it. So, there we were in the bus finally all set to explore, everyone bustling with energy, liking the city, all the roads, all the greenery, all the infra China has built up. And nagging about the pathetic state we have got ourselves into in India. Well, that’s for real. These guys have really built up massive highways, even I could not help fretting about the incompetence of India. More on that some other time.
The trip from Hangzhou to the base of Mount Hunagshan takes you through lush green hills, some very dense hills filled up with Bamboo, occasional small towns with strangely enough, completely white houses. I could not find the reason but almost all the houses we saw along the way were painted white. There must be numerous tunnels we would have crossed before reaching the mountain base. The longest one I could remember was almost 4 kms long. The cameras had already started clicking, did I mention that out of the 6 people, four were loaded completely with their SLRs, tripods, extra batteries. No I wasn’t one of them because photography is not my thing, but I am trying to force it onto me.
After around 4 hours we reached the mountain base, this gigantic piece of rock looking down at us with all its might. The small hills all along the bus trip had gradually turned bigger and bigger. It was a good feeling to be between mountains after so long. The last time I could remember seeing this might was when I was in Bhutan, but anyways those are the Himalayas, a different and grand story altogether. As soon as we got out of the bus, we made a kind of bargain and got some maps. As soon as we were out of the bus, we were greeted by a small Chinese man
here, who was wearing a bit oversized suit but was elegantly dressed, and who could amazingly and unbelievably speak very good English. Meet Mr. Hu ( or Who), but its pronounced “Mr. Who”. A small man who made our trip just so fulfilling and easier. The reason being two very simple yet important ones, because the awesome Mr. Hu:
- could understand what we were saying, give us directions in English, happily keep our luggage overnight when we went up the mountain. Arrange free car to drop us to the bus station.
- Give us some very good food, very spicy and very close to being Indian. You have to try out the fish, scrambled egg with tomato. Noodles, fried rice.
If you want to get adventurous try some Snake, Squirrel or Deer meat. Its available. Mr. Hu is a man of taste. He is unique in HuangShan. As a foreigner, you just cannot miss his place.
I read a lot of testimonials people wrote about him in his small diaries, came to know that he has been running this restaurant business since 10 years, extended into a kind-of-hotel, you get beds here for 50 RMB each (the rooms are very good). He has been featured in the Lonely Planet Mag, and I had all the reasons to believe that he deserved to be there. He was just so helpful, very hospitable and happily arranged lot of things for us.
At Mr. Hu’s restaurant we were joined by two of our other friends travelling from Shanghai. Nirmal and Mani. According to Mani, Nirms was carrying a ton of luggage, I couldn’t help but I noticed it. It was a lot of luggage, let’s say about 500 Kgs, if not 1000. Earlier we decided we will keep our luggage at Mr. Hu’s place because the weather was warm, and we could do with a jacket each for the night. It was just a matter of spending night in the mountain, it couldn’t be that cold. At least that’s what we thought. Nirmals one ton of luggage too left there. Left for the cable car to top of the mountain, me and Saurabh bought a grandfather stick to walk along. Saurabh wanted it as a souvenir, well he had started collecting them before even the trip got started completely. Sam got some hi tech foldable stick which could be folded and all. He got in the bus and he spent a lot of time finding out how to actually fold it. Since he couldn’t do it, KP steps in and tries to do it. What a nice gesture. But KP applied too much of his man power and it came off! Sameer’s star trek stick gone! Sameer got a small heart attack, KP smiled with confusion, I laughed hysterically, Saurabh asked what happened. Anyways, the disappointed Sameer somehow got back at fixing it.
The bus took us to the cable car station from where we bought the tickets to Cable car and reach the peak. We were the only guys going up the mountain and I had never been on a cable car (somehow I always kept calling it a trolley). I have fear of heights, I don’t like flights and this thing was no exception. I imagined falling from the cable car into this very very deep gorge, and tried to make plans how to keep alive if we fall down. Thankfully, we din’t fall down. But this cable car went up at almost 60 degrees, a 15 minutes ride and we were already 1800 metres above from where we started. It was as beautiful as the cold outside, a quick headcount here, 8 people, 5 SLRs, as soon as we are out, click, click, click. Let me tell you, that from this peak, the mountain looked very beautiful. There were peaks all around us, as far as we could see there were mountain peaks comprising of nothing but bare rocks with Pine trees growing on the tops, some on the sides. The thing which makes this place unique are the rocky cliffs which are completely bare except for a few pine trees growing here and there. I was a bit disappointed to see a multitude of people on the mountain. I was not astounded but I had not witnessed such type of rocky formations till today. I have travelled mostly in the Himalayas which have a grandeour and might of their own. I am not going to compare them because the Himalayas are a piligrimage, there is a reverence associated with it eveytime you see them and you cannot help but bow to me nature in its silence and purity. But nature is mystical, it always hold a uniqueness of its own in different forms.
We trekked all the way up to the highest peak, and moved to see the Sunset at the Weather station. The sunset was beautiful but I was more concerned about my hands getting number by the minute. It was getting really very cold as the sun set. Remember we had left most of our things at Mr. Hu’s place before coming up. Everyone wanted to find the guy who suggested this, but well, it was a collective decision. So everyone cursed themselves. Nirmal was fretting about his one ton luggage, it had mufflars, jacket even gloves to keep him warm. And now he got screwed like all of us. Which is not bad. Collective decision, collective suffering you see.
Somehow Mani had this very typical thing of walking always in the front, I noticed it that’s ok but then i had to change my mind, coz there he was, walking alone in the dark, on the top of a mountain on the stairs and Bum! A thud, he falls down, a torch light finds him, he notices that, gets up and starts walking as if nothing happened. I fell, so what! Did it hurt? No, its steel. Couldn’t help a laugh there. Absolutely no comments from Mani. Well, that’s Mani for you.We reached the Hotel, ate eggs, yes again.
Checked into our rooms. It was very cold, but the hotel we stayed in was very comfortable. Here, on the top there are very few rooms and you should make your booking well in advance in winters. In summers, you might use the option of renting a tent under the stars. But you need to keep warm. One tent fits two. Go Figure. Well, we had rooms, no tents for us.
A quick hot water shower made us comfortable and we had a good dinner at the hotel restaurant. It was freezing cold outside but the clear sky with almost a full moon and stars made it irresistible to move into the rooms. We stayed out, it had been long since I saw such a clear sky undiluted by the yellow hue of city lights.
We took a few pictures, some had local neat whiskeys. In just 30 minutes, some 5 bottles got finished, neat. It was just too cold. We played some music on my cell, some guys danced a bit. A group of French people joined in the fun. Some more came later. At the end of it, we spent almost 3 hours outside in the freezing cold, some smoking weed, others cigarettes and neat whiskeys, singing, dancing (no love making, because that’s what follows lot of times you see). But had a great time. It was the Moonlight Club, the hottest club on the mountain. Free weed, smoke, cheap drinks. I figured its time to sleep because the sunrise is not be missed as they say and I was already feeling to tired. Next day we trek down the mountain and move to a 1000 year old village, Hongchun, the next stop on our trip. A beautiful days ends.
Hangzhou to HuangShan: Take a bus from bus station, 100 RMB for the ticket.
Eat : Go straight to Mr. Hus restaurant it is at, phone number (Chances are he will be waiting just outside the bus stand at Huangshan). If you plan that way, you can stay at his hotel overnight.
Reach the Mountain: take shuttle bus from HuangShan bus stop to Cable car station, 250 RMB(mountain passes) + 20 RMB (bus tickets). Cable Car ticket: 80 RMB extra.
Stay on Top: Important to book these hotels in advance, if not, try your luck at tents. PS: you might freeze in the winters. Hotel BeiHai : 900 RMB per room, double. Eat in the restaurant here, its good.
