About time I wrote up about my climb up Mount Huashan in Shaanxi, China. It was only almost a month ago…..

I wanted to get the first bus out there so I set my alarm for 6:30. The Chinese girl in the dorm bed across from me had her alarm go off at 5:30. She didn’t wake up. After a good solid minute of continuous ringing, I got out of bed and shook her awake. Everyone else in the dorm is awake by this point and more than a little pissed off. Naturally she hadn’t packed her bag the night before, so she started doing all her packing then. Plastic bags are rustling, her light goes on, the contents of her suitcase is dumped on her bed then repacked while we all sit there in an early morning haze wondering at the huge difference in Chinese and Western culture. Eventually when I decided that there was no way I was going back to sleep, I got up, grabbed my fully packed bag, gave her a solid look to say “Look honey, this is how it’s done.”, and walked down to reception.

The kitchen was closed. Never mind, I’ll just get a good solid breakfast at the McDonald’s by the train station. Nothing like a good helping of McD’s to help you climb a mountain. There’s one register open, and the queue is nearly to the door, but I get my food in time (two sausage & egg McMuffin combos) and head off to find the bus. The only thing that was worrying me was the fact that I’d bought brand new shoes the day before. It took me forever to find shoes in my size in China, and if there’s one thing you do not want to do, it’s buy new shoes right before you do a hike. Especially if that hike is up 2 kilometres of mountain. And especially if you’re staying overnight and the hike takes two days. But it was either that or do it in jandals, so new shoes it was!

There’s a lot of steps…

When we got to Huashan the entire mountain was shrouded in fog. I couldn’t see even close to the tops of any of the peaks. I was taking the Soldier’s Path up, which follows under where the cablecar goes. It started off with steps. Lots and Lots of steps. There’s another easier trail up that winds lazily upwards over 6km. This way was essentially 2km straight up. There were a couple of sections which were just vertical ladders of rock with chains to pull yourself up with. There were a lot of people on them, but only taking photos on the bottom few steps and then climbing up the newer, easier staircase next to them. I was the only person I saw going up the ladder. But I didn’t come halfway round the world to take the easy way out on this!!

After slightly less than two hours (I felt pretty stoked with this, didn’t feel like I was particularly fit!) I made it to the North Peak. There were people selling the engraved locks, so I bought two of them – one to leave on the Plank Path and one to leave at the East Peak.

In my head I had the idea that once I was at the top, walking between the different peaks would be fairly easy. Not at all. Between each one you have to descend a fair way and then climb up to the new one. By the time I’d walked from the North to the East, I’d had enough hiking in my new shoes for one day. I checked into the dorms at the East Peak and had a wander around.

From the East Peak you can take a path out to the Chess Playing Pavilion. To get there, there was a moderately exciting vertical descent down some metal posts stuck into the rock. I had to hire a harness for Y30, and they wouldn’t let me do it without it. I met a nice girl named Kari at the dorms – apparently the only other Westerner around, and she asked if she could come with.

Kari meditating near the Pavilion

We hired the harnesses and went down. I practically bounded down and she took a more conservative approach. At the Pavilion, I had brought my headphones and listened to a song I wrote for this trip, specifically to play on top of this mountain. This photo was taken without me even knowing about it. I was sitting on the edge of a cliff with my eyes were closed, and when I started the song it was just complete gray fog. Those mountains came out while I was listening and Kari took a photo of it. When I opened my eyes at the end of the song, the full mountain range was in view. It was the most beautiful thing, and the most special photo I have.

Just Let Go

In the morning I got up early to see the sunrise but there was nothing but fog. So I grabbed my pack and headed for the plank path to get there before the crowds arrived. It was incredible. They had a harness you had to hire for Y30. I didn’t use it. No way I’d come this far to take all the fear out of it by clipping on a safety harness.

Look ma, no harness!

It starts with a nice gentle descent down iron bars wedged between two cliff faces.

It was completely foggy when I was there which actually made the whole thing even more awesome. The photos aren’t as good, but you couldn’t see where you were going and everything was wet. Ultimate danger

I had my lock with me and put it on the chain at the end of the trail.  It’s the one with the big red ribbon coming off it:

The Chinese characters are wishing my whole family a peaceful and happy life.

“Buy the ticket, take the ride”

Of course with that level of danger, I maintained a high degree of safety at all times…..

The harness was required for this photo

Going to Huashan was a dream of mine since 2010. It was an amazing experience both physically and emotionally. It took me over 60 hours on buses to get there but it was worth every second.

After I’d visited all the other peaks it started to rain so I started the long walk back down the mountain. I’d meant to take the slower scenic view (the one I didn’t take on the way up) but accidentally got back on the Soldier’s Trail again. (The signs are in Chinese, ok!) Just after I started the descent, these two Chinese guys ran past me. Not one to turn down a challenge I started running after them. One of the guys dropped off about halfway down, but the other guy and I kept pushing each other on and didn’t stop once on the whole descent. My legs were killing me and took about a week to recover, but it was worth it just for the looks on everybody’s faces as we passed them, going down one of the steepest mountain paths in the world, at a full run, in the pouring rain.

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Huashan was my pilgrimage and the start of the next chapter.

Just Let Go

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The internet where I’m staying in Guilin is about 30KB/s, which makes it really hard to get a VPN connection and get on here. I’ll have to go back and fill in the last few days when I the ability.

Oh yeah, and this happened:

Well played, China, well played.

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We stopped twice on the way to refuel, my swarthy Russian companion needing more than the sight of gray skies and endless construction to sustain him, and eventually arrived at the Green Forest Hostel.

This is the best hostel I have ever seen.

It was phenomenal.

There is an enormous front room with multiple tables, comfortable couches, pool table, bar, power sockets next to every seat and in every country’s configuration. The dorms were spotless, as if they’d been only painted yesterday. The beds had the softest, thickest pillows I’ve seen on any trip, and possibly in my life. If that wasn’t enough, the showers had the overhead “waterfall” type shower heads – a luxury I have only once before experienced, and that was in a 2 million dong a night palace in Nha Trang. And the most amazing part of all – the entire place is constructed out of recycled building materials in a direct affront to the building practices of the Chinese government, lending it a haphazard and entirely beautiful atmosphere.

I never wanted to leave.

It didn’t help that the rest of the city was entirely gray and depressing, but I could have stayed in that hostel for the forseeable future, and perhaps simply moved in, got a job, married, and raised kids there. Like the children born in San Pedro prison, we would simply live out our lives within its walls, needing nothing else but free wifi, a VPN connection through the Great Firewall of China, and as many showers as one could fit in a day.

It didn’t help one bit that the staff working there were fantastic. The girl working the front desk was named Elaine, had excellent English, and was the most helpful hostel staff member I have met on my trip so far. After check-in and a glorious shower, she sat down with me and thoughtfully planned out the next few weeks of my trip with me. She gave me a whole bunch of options for work in China, including some live music bars where I could get a job playing bass. Now if I could manage to make that happen, I could easily see the entire two months of my visa slipping away without so much as a single sight being seen.

After working on a plan for my trip, she offered to take me on a tour of the city the next day. If this is the service I should be expecting in China, then I am really looking forward to a great couple of months!

I spent a delightful rest of the evening creating my own VPN on my server in the UK and circumventing the Chinese government’s plan to thwart my Facebook stalking. I don’t quite think they realise how many people I’ve met so far on this trip and how much time this level of stalking actually takes.

—-

The next day I had a wonderful breakfast of point-and-hope at a little restaurant across the street. It only cost a dollar and tasted fantastic and I have no idea what it was. I went back to the hostel, congratulated myself yet again for my incredible I.T. skills, and set off for my tour of the city.

It was just as gray and featureless as the day before, but far more interesting with a local guide. We jumped on a bus to the lake in the middle of the city, and along the way Elaine pointed out all the interesting sights. There were three. A science museum, an enormous Bank of Agriculture, and then miles upon miles of apartment buildings. Even the bank had apartments from the fifth floor up. The entire city seems to be constructed entirely of apartment blocks interspersed quite frequently with McDonalds and KFC.

Even grey cities look better in black & white

The lake (although gray) was set in the middle of a gorgeous park, quite unlike the utilitarian decor of the rest of the city. The main activity here seemed to be flying these enormous A wing kites, and competing with the gentleman next to you to see who could get their kite the closest to the stratosphere. This was not a sport for amatuers. For one thing, there is no wind at ground level. It evidently required a great deal of skill to get past the windbreak of the surrounding ring of apartment buildings and up into the acctual airstream. And secondly, these were not mere kites on a spool of string, oh no. Everyone had these elaborate harnesses strapped onto their chests with great reels of (no doubt high-tensile carbon nanotube) string, along with various guages, dials, wind-speed monitors, cup-holders, sonar readouts, geiger counters, and so on.

As I said, not a sport for amateurs. I saw a small child attempt to take part in the fun, only to be turned away by a very stern word from his father, no doubt the local chapter president for the Serious Urban Kite Flyers of China.

We continued on through the park down to the lake. Imagine a sky of the purest gray. Then a ring of gray apartment buildings as far as the eye can see, dotted with cranes building even more gray apartment buildings. Finally, reflect the whole lot in a brown lake awash with sudsy bubbles. Picturesque. There were even fish in the lake, you could see them jumping at intervals, no doubt trying their hardest to escape. We sat on the steps and chatted about life in general while the oily waves lapped at our feet.

Eventually we got a move on, and headed for dinner. Elaine had arranged to meet up with another guy from the hostel and treat us both to a fantastic meal of frog and vegetables. The restaurant was a very cool affair: each table had its own gas ring in the center, and the food was half cooked in the kitchen, and then you did the remainder yourself. The beer was cheap and excellent and I recieved great kudos for opening the first beer with the second, and then later on the second with the empty first. Thank you New Zealand, a good drinking eductaion comes in handy sometimes.

In case you were interested, frog tastes like chicken. The designers of the Matrix really got quite lazy I think.

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The border crossing

The border crossing was definitely an experience. White gloved, camo-wearing army officers tore apart every bag and checked them thoroughly for contraband. The one other backpacker on the bus told me that they confiscate Lonely Planet guides at the border, which would have been a serious pain but they left mine alone.

I had a really late night last night and I kept falling asleep on the bus, but the scenery I was awake for was beautiful.

Once we got into the cities though, everything changed. China is a vision of what I don’t want the future to be. The haze of pollution cut visibility to a few hundred metres, with cookie cutter buildings continuously rising to hold a population constantly growing.

Goodbye sun, it was nice knowing you.

Wish I could put up more pics, but the internet here is terrible.

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