Vibrations of the kung fu mountains (13.9.2009)

Our trip to Mt. Huang Shan began by travelling maybe an hour with a minibus to a town called Tangkou, near the highlands. From there we took a shuttle bus to the eastern gate of Mt. Huang Shan. The weather was extremely misty and the bus drivers were blinking their emergency lights to spot each other on the meandering, 180 degree zigzag road. I don't know actually how high the bus drove, but I'd guess it to be something like 300-500 meters.

At the gates we had a pleasant surprise as our student ID's were accepted and we got in with half of the actual price. Our hiker-team consisted of me, Silja and Ginger (Virginia Harding), a 48 (or 49) year-old lady from the U.S. She was extremely tough in terms of endurance for her age (I think) - as it will become evident - and was a good travel company as she was, like any good American, very good at talking shop. Besides, she liked the Simpsons so we had a great time. It was fun to notice that we Finnish people are not that eager to start conversations, but once someone budges us a little, we can talk a lot about anything. What I also noticed during the trip was that the Finnish people are more likely to be pessimistic than optimistic, although I think our view of the pessimism is kind of vowen into this dark humour: to be able to laugh at our despair or squeeze some (bad) humour out of it.

Off we went for the challenge! The east side was the easier side to ascend as it was only 6.5 kilometers of rock stairs up. Okay, maybe one sentence is not enough to describe it. As we (at least Silja and I) had already been walking everyday until our feet hurt like hell, the ascent was not like just any walk in the park. Sweat was everywhere and we stopped many times along the way to drink water and eat some of our snacks (which by the way I did not like the least bit, I bought them on Friday from Tunxi supermarket). So there we were walking up often passing by the other tourists (mostly Chinese) as we were in such a good shape! :) It went so that I rushed always up ahead and the girls would follow (I thought that this way they have some mental objective with me being up ahead of them). There were also these "mountain slaves", who were carrying these poles, to which some sellable products were attached with rope (the markets high above would need these obviously for the tourists). Their walking speed was veery slow and it looked like a total agony, a hellish experience. They get more money the more they carry, so it was no surprise every one of them was walking really slow. The higher we got the more everything also cost for the aforementioned reason. Luckily I brought with me 3 L of water (though I felt it in my back). We walked faster than the average person, according to what we heard.

When we got to the "top" all beaten, we went about circling the eastern side of the Mt. Huang Shan scenic area. The area was covered in fog/mist, so we could not see that far. In a way it was fun, because there were these ledges, and if you went just to the edge, you could just imagine what might lie under the mysterious mist. It was really like from some Kung Fu movie (like the end of the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, where in the end the girl flies down the mountain to receive her destiny). The scenery looked a lot alike. Having wandered for some time we decided to get to our hotel/hostel, which was one hour away. We had to climb for the Bright Peak, which was supposed to be teh place to see the sunrise next morning. Up and down, there was our hostel. We barely used the bathroom and went out again for the next challenge. It was said that the western scenery area would take four hours to complete and the time when we left for it was 14.45, and it would become dark at 18.30.

The western scenery area was really nothing like before.. We were walking first the mountains as narrow as our paths with sometimes no handrails - just a drop of maybe 500 meters. Everywhere were these great stone spires with green plants piercing the fog that was way down below us.. and sometimes you could see very far without the fog. The path went stairs up, stairs down, stairs up... And some of us began to have doubts whether we would ever make it, but I insisted on going and rushed in front :P. After some point we noticed that we were not alone in our endeavour but other as crazy as us were on the move. Walking on these 30 cm thick stairs, which were literally attached to the side of the mountain was somekind of a leap of faith, because only this 30 cm separated me and my team from a certain death. And having heard of the Chinese bridge construction skills, I was half-sure to be dead after this trip. But as I'm now writing this back in Tunxi hostel with my legs bashed and numb and so on, I'm still alive and kicking. Anywheys, we managed to get back to our hostel just when the sun went down.

I lodged in the boys' dormitory, in which there was four Chinese guys and one Ostrailian (Australian) might (mate), who had done the same deal that day, so we were both a little exhausted. Anyway after talking a bit I decided to retreat to my bed only to awake at 4 A.M.

In total darkness at 04.30 A.M. we climbed to the Bright Summit. I jumped over some fence up there to get to a rock with great view. Other tourists followed me behind. The sun rose later than we had thought and we never actually saw the sphere; just the sun's red radiance through the thick clouds. The views were very stylish with all the peaks just waking up and showing their tops through the sliding fog whilst the horizon was filled with warm colours getting brighter and brighter all the time. There were A LOT of tourist packed on the peak. We decided to go back down to the hostel to eat some corn and eggs for breakfast. After this we headed down for the western hills for the big descent.

Some people were crazy enough to climb upwards the western side of the mountain, which we were going down (it was said to be 15 km). At that point of the whole trip, however, going down was very painful because all the muscles in the feet, especially thighs, were so sore that they were trembling whenever they needed to be used in any way. That is why I either walked with no suspension in my feet (walking with stick-legs to prevent any muscle usage) or I ran down the stairs very fast to minimize the time needed for muscle use (there were these plateaus every once in a while). Finally, we reached the end barely being able to walk. We took a taxi to Tangkou, from which we went on by a bus to Tunxi bus station, AND from there to the hostel with a taxi. And went to eat some well-deserved junk food in a local KFC-clone, just to "balance out the equation".

Tomorrow at 09.xx A.M. it is time to approach the essence of the trip: return to Beijing for the studies. We are supposed to be at the campus on wed-thu to show our admission notice's to some people at the Tsinghua uni. If everything goes according to the plan, we should arrive to Beijing 05.xx A.M. tuesday morning, so there is lots of time left :). We reserved the train tickets on Friday, and since every Chinese student is returning to study, we barely managed to get the tickets for the train. The tickets: no seat. Means probably we will be situated in a pig house wagon filled with late/poor students unable to move even one bit. So this is going to be our last experience. Yeah!