My main reasons for visiting Anhui were the predictable ones: See some villages, visit Huangshan. When I arrived it was raining and as any fools knows, its a bad plan to climb a mountain in a thunder storm. I decided to do the villages first. I set of early in the morning with three girls from my hostel. We were planning on taking a local bus to a big village called Xidi and then going on from there. However we ended up negotiating a price with a taxi driver for the day. He was a nice guy, and the mix of English (his only word was 'taxi'), Chinese and sign language kept us happily amused. The first and best stop of the day was Chengkan. A nice Ming (?) dynasty village with an unintelligible but very poetic entrance sign. It felt like a real village, open sewers, cows and scruffy children. It was very relaxing to wander through, although it was a Chinese village so the of course the experience came with an entrance fee. I wondered how much if any of this, the villagers ever saw. Although there was also a tour route, we decided that was dull and went for a freestyle walk. The result was us getting slightly lost but luckily we managed to surreptitiously follow a grandmother back to civilisation. Our last stop was Hongcun, the tourist spot of the day. It was beautiful
but busy and we spent much less time here than we did in Chengkan. Once again using local grandmothers to negotiate the alleyways! This was a village of street food and we sampled an abundance of different deep fried biscuits, some of which were edible. The day ended slightly stressfully as our taxi driver finished his shift without telling us. The last bus had gone and for an hour or so we thought we were stranded. When his replacement finally turned up he didn't get why we'd been worried- silly westerners, not knowing about local shift patterns! When the weather cleared up I went to Huangshan. The bus left as 6am which was a bit horrible, especially as Id stayed up too late the night before. Ah well! I went with Adam, a Chinese guy from my dorm and we joined up with a few others on the bus, so by the time we got there we had a good hiking team! Huangshan is big, so for the sake of seeing some of the nice less touristy bits at the top we took a cable car up the east side of the mountain. We then did a 16km hike around the summit. Across to the west side and then around the west deep sea canyon. This was steep and some of the paths, slightly terrifying, when you saw from the side they were only 10cm of concrete, 100s of meters above the ground. The views were lovely though, spectacular pine trees clinging to rocky peaks rising out of a sea of mist clad lower mountains. The Chinese have a crazy habit of building steps around their mountains. Its a bit odd and makes it into a tourist destination rather than a peaceful retreat, but it does mean that you can access amazing areas without being a stupidly high grade rock climber! We shared the sunset with the masses then, after a few hours sleep in a hotel on the summit (!) we shared the sunrise with the masses too. The two looked somewhat similar and although beautiful were somewhat disturbed by the camera flashes and cheers. I'm not really complaining. If it had been a sunrise in Scotland, the crowd would have been an intrusion, but this is China. You can't escape the people. All activities are communal, watching the sunrise included! The next day I spent hobbling. I caught a bus to Hangzuou in the afternoon as I needed to get back to shanghai to catch my train to Hong Kong. My first proper bus journey in china.
but busy and we spent much less time here than we did in Chengkan. Once again using local grandmothers to negotiate the alleyways! This was a village of street food and we sampled an abundance of different deep fried biscuits, some of which were edible. The day ended slightly stressfully as our taxi driver finished his shift without telling us. The last bus had gone and for an hour or so we thought we were stranded. When his replacement finally turned up he didn't get why we'd been worried- silly westerners, not knowing about local shift patterns! When the weather cleared up I went to Huangshan. The bus left as 6am which was a bit horrible, especially as Id stayed up too late the night before. Ah well! I went with Adam, a Chinese guy from my dorm and we joined up with a few others on the bus, so by the time we got there we had a good hiking team! Huangshan is big, so for the sake of seeing some of the nice less touristy bits at the top we took a cable car up the east side of the mountain. We then did a 16km hike around the summit. Across to the west side and then around the west deep sea canyon. This was steep and some of the paths, slightly terrifying, when you saw from the side they were only 10cm of concrete, 100s of meters above the ground. The views were lovely though, spectacular pine trees clinging to rocky peaks rising out of a sea of mist clad lower mountains. The Chinese have a crazy habit of building steps around their mountains. Its a bit odd and makes it into a tourist destination rather than a peaceful retreat, but it does mean that you can access amazing areas without being a stupidly high grade rock climber! We shared the sunset with the masses then, after a few hours sleep in a hotel on the summit (!) we shared the sunrise with the masses too. The two looked somewhat similar and although beautiful were somewhat disturbed by the camera flashes and cheers. I'm not really complaining. If it had been a sunrise in Scotland, the crowd would have been an intrusion, but this is China. You can't escape the people. All activities are communal, watching the sunrise included! The next day I spent hobbling. I caught a bus to Hangzuou in the afternoon as I needed to get back to shanghai to catch my train to Hong Kong. My first proper bus journey in china.
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