First, the 2019 New Year break for our school was on a Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. That Saturday we actually had to work but since I took off a personal day for Christmas, I still only worked 5 days that week so I wasn't pining for that three day break that badly. After that Saturday of work, the group I was traveling with received a few bad news.
I had asked for an itinerary, hotels, and how we were getting to Huangshan only to keep being brushed off. At one point I was told, "There is no reason to be so nervous Chelsea. We have this covered."
Okay then. If you say so.
The troubles began immediately.
Originally the group was to be six people, two people got sick, reducing the group to four. This was a problem for a few reasons. The person who got sick...they planned the whole trip and they were supposed to drive us to Huangshan in their car and give us a tour of the city. She gave us her car to drive to Huangshan because literally no one else in our group had a car and two of the four of us left were even allowed to drive in China. One of those two had ever driven in the snow in the mountain. It also made the trip more expensive because instead of splitting the cost six ways we now had to split it four ways. So we were off to a great start.
The first stop we made was halfway between Jiaxing and Huangshan as we didn't want to drive the five hours in the dark. When we were at the hotel I was talking to my roommate and she stated that she didn't want to hike up the mountain with her luggage and that confused me. When I asked her to go into that further she went on to explain that there were ZERO roads that went to our hotel, which was on the top of the mountain, and also..the hotel was expensive even if we would have split it six ways. I was so surprised and angry that no one had told me this and she was surprised that of the five other people going on the trip, they had all failed to tell me this. I hadn't brought a backpack but a carry-on luggage case and that meant I had to borrow someone's backpack when we arrived in Huangshan to carry up the mountain. We had a meeting that night and had to call the person who was supposed to be our guide: How long was the hike? Was the hotel easy to find? What was the booking number? Were there cable cars available?
I sat there stunned that no one had asked these questions before, they had all blindly trusted this person to take them everywhere. I was also angry that when I had asked these questions earlier that month, I was brushed off, and now my fears were being realized. I was also worried about the hike as I had injured my knee last year and had no idea how rough or easy the trails would be.
When we arrived in Huangshan the next day we ate KFC, parked the car, got our backpacks, and then headed to a shop that sold water proof coats and pants along with these ice grips you could place over your shoes.
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| Looking cool as heck. |
It was very cloudy and snowy which scared us all a bit but to all of our delight the cable cars were promised to make a three hour hike into only a ten minute trip. We took the cable car up the mountain but our hotel was still about 45 minutes away. Still way WAY better than the three hours our original guide/group member told us.
The trails themselves were incredibly easy to hike! The entire mountain has a staircase carved into it, making the hike into more of a pleasant stroll. I have done my share of hiking in Yellow Stone National Park, Teton National Forest, and the Rocky Mountains and this hike was nothing compared to those. By the time we got to our hotel it was dark so we ate dinner, watched Mad Max: Fury Road and went to bed in a very warm hotel.
We started the next day with breakfast, checked out of the hotel, and went to hike the mountain's various trails. We went to the most famous area where people go watch the sunrise. At that point we had missed the sunrise as it was predicted to be too cloudy to see it so we slept in. We were surprised to see blue skies the next day.
The hike was very charming. There are supposed to be deer living on the mountain but we only saw a cat and heard a few birds. It was surreal to me at one point, because I realized I hadn't heard birds chirping in a long time. Living in a city, you just don't hear them.
We ate lunch at one of the restaurants on the mountain then hiked down to a cable car station. It started to get cloudy and then from then on it snowed on us. It wasn't terribly cold but the staircases did get slick. Almost everyone had a hard time with the ice shoe grips as they kept slipping off our shoes. I actually had no problems, and I think it was because I managed to pick up my feet. Those who had more problems were tired and I think were dragging their feet due to exhaustion. We did get to the cable car just fine.
Arriving at the bottom of the mountain we threw away our water proof gear but kept the ice shoe grips to walk to our car. We drove to our next destination which was an "old town." Old towns in China are a popular tourist destination as they are designed to look like ancient Chinese buildings (Moon River in Jiaxing is a fake old town). Some of these are original but there are many fake ones. The one we visited was mostly original.
Naturally, hotel troubles came back to haunt us. The hotel that was picked by the group had great reviews for the manager but the hotel itself was awful. It was designed to look Japanese but the man who made it clearly had no idea what he was doing. My room had rocks on the ground and you had to hop around to not stab your feet. All the doors were made out of bamboo and paper, like you see in Japan, but the man clearly didn't know that the Japanese have heavy blankets in front of those doors to keep heat in. All of the bathrooms were tiny which was confusing since the living rooms were huge. In my fury I kicked all the rocks to one wall so that I wouldn't have to step on them in the middle of the night. I got my old roommate back as she couldn't stand her unbearable small bathroom.
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| You may notice that the shower, sink, and toilet are in the same area. |
We blasted our heaters, ate supper, and came back to find our rooms were the same temperature as the outside. To all of our anger we had to book a new hotel that night and couldn't get a refund for this bad hotel. So we paid for two hotels. $$$$ down the small shower drain.
Our new hotel though....it was AMAZING. There was a fire place, the host roasted us potatoes, and he brewed us tea. The hotel was done in a western style so I found it incredibly comfortable. The bathrooms were huge and the rooms were warm. 10/10 would stay again.
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| Three happy campers. |
After checking in, we shopped for drinks, snacks, and souvenirs and watched the New Year's countdown on Chinese TV. We had a toast and went to bed. A great way to end the day!
That morning my roommate and I headed off to explore the old town. We ate breakfast in a restaurant that was also a man's house and he let us walk around his old home. It was really cool! He had newspapers and pictures plastered to his walls, old carvings hung on the door, and paintings as well.
There were many old houses to see from former merchants or dignitaries, an old school, a shopping area, and a lot of places that sold souvenirs, tea, and food. We drove back to Jiaxing that afternoon but first made a stop at a rest area. I will talk about that in a later post...but it was crazy. The male member of our group, Sunny, doesn't actually work at our school and came up to see his girlfriend Evelyn (you may remember them from previous posts) so he had to go to Hangzhou airport and fly back to his city. Evelyn drove the rest of the way home and that was the end of the trip.
In all, the trip cost us a lot more money than we anticipated and it was stressful for me as many details were never explained to me, even though I had asked. However, there were many delightful parts of our trip like the hike, the old town, and the fireplace hotel.
Would I go to Huangshan again? Yes, I think I would but I would definitely plan it on my own terms.
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