Huang Shan (AKA: Yellow Mountain)
Ok, I thought the sunrise from the top of Kilimanjaro was magnificent but damn, I think we have a tie for first place now. Yesterday, we went to many peaks in the Huang Shan area… and at sunset, we found ourselves on Purple Cloud Peak, watching the most spectacular sunset. The altitude wasn’t as high as Kilimanjaro but the mountains here are something else. Let me back up a little though…
So, we left the day before yesterday early in the morning to the Front Gate of Huang Shan. Apparently parts of the base are closed due to construction (getting ready for the Olympics)… so we took a bus up to the cable-car area. You would think that 2 people that were able to summit Kilimanjaro would walk up to the summit of Huang Shan…. psh..yeah, right. We dished out for the gondola up to one of the peaks… and we were sure glad we did. The mountain is really steep compared to the route we took on Kilimanjaro… like stairs straight up. I would have died if we tried to walk up.
At the top of the gondola, the view was already incredible… peak after, after peak, after beautiful peak…. of course, with our Karma and all that, the sun was beaming down on us and there were virtually no clouds in the sky. Man, I love this trip. Anyway, it’s pointless for me to try to explain peak after peak after peak but let me just say this: Once you take the gondola to the top, there are still PLENTY of stairs you have to do to see these beautiful peaks… so if you have a heart condition, severe arthritis, bad knees, etc., you might not be able to traverse the whole area…. but I do recommend that you at least take the cable car up and try what you can. The view is worth it.
Anyway, after what felt like forever, John and I found our hotel at the top of the mountain. They had dorm rooms so we were able to get beds for under $20 but the prices of everything else like food was ridiculous… so John and I actually bought cups of instant noodles for our meals…yuck. And as I mentioned earlier, we went to Purple Cloud Peak to watch one of the most beautiful sunsets I have ever seen.
In the morning, we actually managed to get up at 5am to climb back up to the peak to watch the Sunrise from the other side… another spectacular view. I think it would have been more perfect if the Chinese people around us could use their “indoor voices” and stopped spitting for 2 seconds… but I guess we can’t win them all.
We made our way down the mountain in a mere 5 hours (not taking the cable car) and now we’re back at the hostel… our knees are pretty sore from the walk down so I don’t think we are doing anything today other than post this blog and play with the two cute dogs they have here.
Tomorrow is our train to Shanghai… woooo… we only have a couple days there and we told Marlon (the guy we met in Chengdu) that we were going to find the Hooters in Shanghai so that’s pretty much our only mission… haha… see you there!
Tags: China
cheng.ev
April 5th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I think i wanna do the cruise to see these peaks you speak of