Where's Huangshan?
Trip Start
Aug 26, 2008
1
129
145
Trip End
Aug 17, 2009
Huangshan,
Anhui,
China
Monday, June 29, 2009
We were slightly encouraged that the rain had stopped. We hoped to find Hauangshan partially shrouded in the remants of the morning’s storm. We ate a quick late breakfast and caught a cab to the bus station. We had to argue with the driver to go to the station instead of being touted to some nonsense travel agency
Ominous
. A bad sign.Arriving at the bus station, imagine our surprise when the station worker gave us the same nonsense price! On the way in we had to blow off our cab driver, who wanted to take us up to Huangshan for 3 times more than what would be a fair rate. We told another cabbie making a worse offer to take a hike, and caught a bus up the mountain in comfort and with a better view than any cab. Best of all, the driver kept his mouth shut and didn’t try to sell us anything.
Arriving at the base of the mountain, we coughed up the exorbitant fee of RM 220 (without the bullshit "insurance" everyone and their brother in China is trying to attach to ticket prices nowadays)
A word on “insurance:” There are signs everywhere (IN MANDARIN ONLY) which state “a passenger has the right to choose insurance if they want it”. The reality of the situation is that you will get the ticket price inflated by 3-10 RMB for insurance whether you ask for it or not. The only way to get rid of the pesky insurance charge is to ask the price, then ask the price AGAIN and this time say “without insurance.”
As for the “insurance” itself, it is nonsense
The road up to Huangshan
. What are they going to “insure”? Are they going to pay out millions of RMB in the case that some insured passengers die in a crash? Are they going to pay for medical bills? Lost luggage? Pain and suffering from catching swine flu from improperly ventilated and never cleaned busses? No, of course not. In fact you get nothing for “buying insurance” not even a receipt. It’s just one more minor and incredibly annoying bit of extortion that you need to be prepared to dodge if you travel in China.Unfortunately, we missed the signs to the Cloud Valley Cable Car and instead bought tickets for the White Goose Cable car. The “ropeway” (just a gondola ski lift) took us up the mountain and into the clouds. And rain.
And that’s what we saw. Clouds and rain. Rain and clouds. And some trees. Despite the weather report’s “50% chance of thunderstorms” we experienced “100% chance of rain—which was forecast for the next several days. We did catch one glimpse of the mountain’s splendor when the clouds parted and we saw the famed “tree growing on a brush tip” or something like that. They closed again too quickly even for us to snap a photo. We spent a few fruitless hours trudging around in the pouring rain and wind before giving up and heading back down the mountain
Inside the Ropeway Station
. The view was actually better from the bottom.Because it is apparently too much to ask to include even a crummy official map of the mountain along with the 220 RMB entry fee, visitors are left with the choice of buying outdated and inaccurate maps hawked by untrustworthy vendors, or trying to navigate using the incomplete and confusing maps on the trails. In their infinite wisdom, the keepers of Huangshan Mountain decided that it would be best to put a trail map at every fork in the trail. They also decided that these maps should be engraved in stone and only display the trails and locations within 0.5 kilometers from that specific point in the trail. As the mountain is dozens of kilometers across, this is completely useless when trying to find your way around and we spent our short time on the mountain completely lost with no idea where we were or how to get to where we wanted to go.
It turned out not to matter anyway, because by the time we did go in the direction we wanted, we realized the rain and clouds were not going to clear. After making a few fruitless loops, we headed back to the cablecar and rode back down.
Huangshan would be an excellent place for an easy hike
Weather Gear
. All the trails are broad and well-kept. If you can find a map that is not out-of-date (we couldn’t) you could have a nice time hiking around the mountain for a day or two. If you were really lucky and caught the mountain after a storm, you might see some of the spectacular cloud formations in it’s many rifts and valleys. However, when it is encased in clouds or under a clear sky, the view itself is pretty underwhelming. After returning to town, we reluctantly paid the exorbitant bus ticket price and turned in for the night, preparing to move on since the rain showed no sign of clearing.
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