May 16, 2012

Spring Travel, because it would be "a great adventure!"... right?

One of the most common questions I get from my students and friends is:
"How do you get around? I mean, you don't speak or read the native language, and yet you still manage to travel."
Well let me introduce you all to My Little Black Book... of Chinese Travel

I bought this handy dandy little guy the first week I moved into my apartment. I was grocery shopping at the little convenience store across the street and in the back there was a bin of these for 5kuai. I grabbed one figuring it would be handy to write out a little cheat sheet for reading common Chinese characters. Little did I know at that time that the tiny book would be saving my ass left and right from miscommunication with taxi drivers and my horrible sense of direction.

When I travel I put everything in this little book. What train, what time it leaves, when it arrives, how much it costs, how to get from the train station to the hostel, the name of the hostel in Chinese with the phone number, and the major attractions of the area and what buses/subway lines will take me there. It's also been great for shopping. I get on taobao.com and find what I need then copy the Chinese name and price then pop into Taihe (the electronics high rise building) and show the first person I meet. More often than not I end up with some sort of impromptu personal assistant at Taihe. Taxi drivers always get a kick out of the book when I hand it to them with directions in Chinese and English for where I want to go.

Preparation for departing Shijiazhuang Airport/Arriving Shanghai Hostel

Now that you all know my secret to (mostly) smooth and easy travel in China, I must confess recently I put down the book to have a try at my friend's (Tyler's) more adventurist way of traveling. Last week we made preparations such as trains, planes, and hostels for a week long trip to the south. He was going to be doing some business stuff in Shanghai while I was going to be visiting Hangzhou and scenic areas of Guilin. Other than jotting down some easy railway station to hostel directions I put the book away and was ready to wing it through the beautiful mountains of south China. The first day went well, we caught our overnight train to Shanghai and in the morning I pretty much walked right onto one of the hundred trains that runs between Shanghai and Hangzhou every day. An hour and a half later I was safely situated in a cozy hostel in the middle of Hangzhou so I set out for West Lake.


Well turns out the lake was quite a bit further away than I thought, and I never actually made it all the way to the lake on foot, but I happened across the City God Pavilion and got to have a free fruit buffet dinner at the top while overlooking the lake at sunset. Halfway through dinner it clouded over/began to drizzle and there wasn't any sunset so I never got any really amazing pictures but it was still beautiful. In the morning I awoke to a torrential downpour. Much to my sudden dismay I realized I didn't have a coat, much less a poncho or umbrella. I went down to the desk to check the weather in Guilin and realized my lack of preparation had let me into a weather trap. Guilin was to be having severe thunderstorms for all three days I was to be in the city. I didn't want to go back to Shanghai without a few days of break from the big city feel so I decided to go through the hostel pamphlets other travelers had left. The only city I could find within a days travel which wasn't going to be underwater during the week was Huangshan. I called the hostel, they had beds and so I set out to return my train ticket for a quick 2 hour bus ride to this new city. The country side we passed through on the way was AWESOME.


After an initial debacle finding my hostel (I walked past it three times) I got settled in and went adventuring. I was smack middle in old street market. There were all sorts of traditional medicine venders, nice traditional Chinese food restaurants, and people every third shop down practicing their calligraphy and painting skills. It. was. BOMB. (and there were so many cute doggies!!!)

SO MANY TEAS!!!!!!!!

I woke up the next morning and after breakfast went down to the front desk to find out what I could do for the day. I had read online about a famous mountain nearby (Mt. Huangshan/Yellow Mountain) and was eager to have relaxing day among the trees.
This was the first decision leading to what would later lead to my fat ass racing against sunset for safety
So I bought a double sided city/mountain map for 4元 from the desk and set off for the bus station. At the bus station I simply mimed mountain with my hand and a woman grabbed my arm and escorted me over to a small bus and I hopped on. Sixteen kuai later I was on a quiet serene road twisting through tiny rice farms and villages, passing over crystal clear streams and every so often getting a glimpse of an oxen plowing a crop.


About an hour and a half later we emerged out of the mountains into a nicer town and people began to get off the bus. I realized I had no idea where I was supposed to be headed. I was looking for some large impressive mountain but saw nothing that really stood out. Finally we pulled up outside of an English travel agency and someone came to talk to me, he then directed them to what I guess is one of the main bus terminals for rides up to the base of the mountain. I hastily hopped off the bus and it took off. I walked across the street to a seemily deserted little building with one guy outside selling water out of a cooler. When I approached he was coordial enough and directed me to the bus ticket window. I pulled out my map to try and identify to which hicking entrace I wanted to go.
This was the first time the thought that my map didn't match the mountain came across
Eventually I decided to go to up the Yungu Temple and cable car station. It was expensive but all the tour groups were going up the hiking trail so I decided on the cable car. Best 80kuai I've spent in china.


Arriving at the top I was all planned to head west and go across the range to see the famous cliff hanging walkways... but I never made it. Due to my main landmark being on the wrong mountain peak on my map I headed off in completely the wrong direction. I ended up on the Beginning to Believe Summit first. It was breathtaking seeing the irregular stalagmite-like mountain peaks. By then I knew I was headed in the wrong direction, but I was still determined to make it to the Jade Screen Peak area.

The places at the bottom of the mountain are Fuxi Village, and Tangkou Town. I think.

So I doubled back and started heading west towards the TV tower that I knew I could follow to the mid-point. It took MUCH longer than I had expected, apparently I was tiring and was in turn walking at a slower pace. I arrived at the Beihai Hotel about 2pm (I had set foot on the mountain at 12:30). I took a small break and haggled for some water (down from 10kuai to 4. outrageous). From here I Headed for Brightness Peak (1840m) one of the top three peaks on the range. From there I would work my way over to the Illusion scenic area to see the Walking Fairy Land Bridge and Wusong catching the tiger peak (which was really the whole reason I came to the mountain). Things shifted quickly as my mostly relaxing hike turned into a truely endless uphill battle of stairs between Beihai Hotel and the Television Station. I climbed up endless sloping stairs for about a hour and a half before I came up at Brightness Summit, and it began to rain.


This is when I became certain my map was not accurate scale wise, or on its placement of markers
The other problem was I could never locate the attractions listed on the mountain signs on my map, they were in fact not listed. I knew at this point I was cutting it close in regards to being able to take the cable car down, avoiding the 2 and a half hour downhill hike. So I began to double time it... in what turned out to be the wrong direction. I realized this after about an hour when I reached the next labeled attraction "Flying Over Rock". I stopped to ask one of the tour guides which direction I could take to get to "Jade Screen Station" very fast and he just gave me a worried look and pointed me in a direction so I started off that way. I arrived at the Meteorological Observatory at about 4pm. I had no idea it was so late, but was certain they would be shutting off the cable cars soon so opted out of the further away station for the cable car line I came up the mountain on. I knew it was about two hours away but if I jogged it I would make it... so I set off jogging. Easily the hardest thing I had ever done (up to that point) I went up and down and across two mountains arriving at the station at 5:20. It was closed.

Panic began to creep in as huffing, puffing, and limping from the jog I searched for someone, anyone, who could point me in a direction where I could hike down off the mountain. According to my map it was supposed to be right next to the station but in fact it was on the mountain I had just jogged across, so back we went. Through the workers quarters and OVER a large fence next to a sheer cliff face drop (climbing all those livestock gates in my early years DID NOT prepare me for that). He led me to an area I had passed an hour earlier and pointed down a staircase I hadn't even taken notice of and said "1 hour 30". Near to a shear drop and stairs made for people with small feet. GREAT. [5:40]

[not my picture] No handrail, just old old concrete. Often it was a good 4 or 5 ft. drop on either side.

So I started down the stairs with about 60% daylight left. Without my smartphone or a flashlight I was going to be in trouble if I couldn't make it down fast enough. I gave Tyler a call to let him know what was going on (and mostly so he could talk me down from a panic attack) and I set off. A steady pace about a step for each heartbeat. It wasn't long until I ran into some people. They didn't speak English but it was easy enough to mime "How long have you been climbing?" and to my horror, they said over 3 hours. It went on, and on, and on, and on, and on. An hour later full panic was beginning to set in. I passed a necessities setup half carved into the mountain face and as I jogged by he yelled some thing in Chinese. When I turned around I saw him holding a huge flashlight but waved him off as he shouted 40yuan in Chinese. When I turned to continue on he immediately lowered to 10 but there was no way physical way I was going back up two flights of stairs to get a flashlight. I was certain I would make it down, it had been an hour and the guy who showed me the stairs said an hour and a half. I had about 40% daylight and I was going to make it, though the thought he would have sold me the HUGE floodlight for 10kuai was quite troubling. He worked on the mountain and if he was that worried I was still going to be up here come nightfall maybe so should I...

I continued on, increasing my pace but painfully aware of the toll it was taking. Finally there was a break in the trail and the steps got larger and more robust. I pulled out my China phone and called the hostel hoping to get some useful information out of them. [6:15 - 30% daylight] All they did was laugh and say that the sun set at different times each day. They couldn't be bothered to jump off the qzone tab for 5 seconds and get on weather.com or anything like that ya know. So I hung up, put some Fall Out Boy on and continued. Never stopping for fear I'd loose my rhythm and fall; or stop, realize how much pain my thighs were in and just fall over. As I bobbed along I started making plans. If I wasn't going to be able to make it to the bottom before nightfall I had to do something, but continuing on in pitch black down these stairs was just too dangerous. After sleeping on a Chinese bed for 9 months I was certain I'd have no trouble sleeping on the bare ground(in fact, it may have been more cushiony). I knew there weren't going to be any large predators on the mountain. Snakes are probably rare and the only thing I really had to worry about was if any of the small wildlife had rabies, or getting bit by some venomous insect. The biggest problems were going to be starting a fire, and my active imagination. Also, it was starting to get cold, and I'd been out in the rain all day in a t-shirt and shorts.

Continuing along it soon became, "No just a little bit further, I'll hold out for a better rock overhang.", "I could totally make a shelter out of those carrier chairs...". Then it dawned on me what I really thinking about doing. I was going to stop, and try and hunker down outside in the rain for the next 9 hours of dark? No, no I was not. This is when I'm sure it got really strange for whatever wildlife was watching me from the trees. I was quickly loosing strength and determination... and in the words of Andy Balfor of True Blood - I went "all 'lost in the nature' retarded".

I began yelling little quips of self motivation banter at myself (I was the little Ping that could, at one point), and with my legs starting to fail I was having trouble with my balance. So yelling, with my arms waving in the air, and making a loud "HUH" with every other step I kept my rhythm down the mountain. Then it happened, I could SEE the hiking entrance gate! [7:00 - 10% daylight]. I steped through the (thankfully) unlocked gate at 7:20 and though it was pit dark the parking lot had lights and I could see 2 or 3 workers milling around the area.


This was one of the first pictures of the day that I took. Little did I know 7 hours later I was going to be standing at the top of these stairs, just after sunset, huffing, puffing and with legs trembling scream "HA" fall over on my but and laugh hysterically. No doubt worrying the few people in the area to the bat shit crazy foreigner. I crawled down the stairs on my but, and stumbled over to a nearby bench to call Tyler. We talked for about 5 minutes, he was convincing me to continue on to the mountain base to see if I could find a hotel in the village but I was hesitant about setting out down a windy paved road by myself with no light... really I just wanted to go to sleep on the bench. Never the less I hauled myself off the bench and began for the bus parking lot, only to discover the last bus had left - 2 minutes ago.

A girl saw me hopelessly standing in the parking lot and as I began to sing and head down the path for a village she ran over to ask where I was going. I told her the village and she grabbed my arm and said there was a hotel near the tourist building. Turns out my 4ft tall 22 year old Chinese friend was actually traveling with her 2 friends around southern China on foot from some remote village out west, but her English was decent and so we chatted. We arrived at the entrance gate to the hotel only to find out from the not so friendly guard that they had "no rooms" but later the excuse became that they were closed (though I swore I could see lights through the trees). So the girl and I started back up the hill to the main entrance we'd come from, when we came across a policeman. She explained my situation and he was going to call me a taxi when a SUV pulled up to let someone out at one of the workers dorms, and the girl took off running. She caught the car and asked them to take me down to the village at the bottom of the mountain. With the policeman looming over me they hastily agreed and I hopped into a REALLY nice SUV next to a overly excited small Chinese kid with his mom and dad. Essentially I'd drawn the winning lottery ticket of China hitchhiking.

It was a really awkward 30 minute ride down to the village and at the bottom I jumped out and said my goodbyes. I noticed they dropped me outside the police station at the bottom of the mountain so I headed in to see if anyone could direct me to a hotel but no one was inside (oh China). I had seen some huge fancy building up the street so I headed off that direction and into the first building I could find. I was in a nice, well decorated and well lit lobby. I spotted a convenience store and bolted for it. I hadn't eaten since breakfast at 9am and hadn't drunken any water since the small bottle in the middle of the day on the mountain. But I was thirstier than I was hungry, I grabbed three bottles of water and overlooked the food. Juggling the water I hobbled over to the front desk to haggle for a room. The lady spoke no English but I got across I wanted 1 bed and CHEAP. She pulled out a pamphlet and wrote prices next to the different rooms pictured. 700kuai for the single!!! A laugh and an "aw hell no" was my first response so I shimmied my money sleeve out of my wallet and showed her all I had in my wallet was 100kuai. She pointed at the ATM and I said méiyǒu. Frustrated she said okay, 200kuai and what I figured out was a 100kuai deposit. I was desperate so I went for it. I pulled out my money sleeve (much to her surprise) and handed over 300kuai. After a debacle with my passport (they couldn't figure out if I was in the country legally. Was I their first foreigner ever?) she led me up to my room.


As I checked the room I immediately noticed they had quite the fly, gnat and insect infestation, but it was quite the upgrade from the mountain so I flipped on the TV. As I thumbed through the welcome book it dawned on me to check out where I was actually staying. There it was, right there on the front of the book, "Huangshan First Business Man Hotel". I had upgraded my living situation from a mountain to a brothel. Suddenly the exorbitant price she quoted me for the room made sense, luckily after hobbling with me to the room and seeing the route I'd drawn on the map to keep track of where I'd gone she realized the only thing I was after was a good nights sleep.

I got up at about 5am and camped out in the hotel lobby until they opened. I grabbed some bread and chips for breakfast and headed out on foot for the bus station. An hour later at the bus station I discovered, with translation help from my hostel, that the bus station only let buses up the mountain, not back to the city. In utter despair I let loose on the poor girl running the hostel desk phone about how they could run a business like a hostel when they didn't know anything about their most popular tourist attraction. I ended up apologizing later, but I was still stuck a hour and a half away from my luggage at this point though somehow I was supposed to be checked out of the place by noon and on my way back to Shanghai to meet Tyler and Ike. In the end I bargained out a taxi to take me home for 100kuai. Got back to the hostel about 10am, showered, checked out and got on my bus to Hangzhou where I could take an easy train into Shanghai.

Barely able to go up and down stairs I navigated Shanghai to find Tyler and Ike for a foreign dinner and drinks. Never in my life had I been so happy to see a friend. Dinner was expensive but dammit I deserved that whiskey/coke, mac'n'cheese, and steak sandwich. Or so I thought. As if God decided I wasn't at rock bottom yet I woke up at 5am stiff as a board with food poisoning. I spent the next two days in bed reading just hoping I'd be well soon enough to go see the things in Shanghai that I had missed the first time. I hobbled out of bed on the third night to go and meet Ike and Tyler for the bar crawl. Apparently Beer Olympics had grounded Ike for the night but his friend Andy was in town for the night so we set out for bar crawl, which turned out to be my best decision of the trip hands down.


So here I am, safe back in the Shiz. I feel like I've been gone for a month but really it was just 7 days. No doubt I needed the vacation. I'm starting to plan my summer traveling before I get home and I assure you, the black book will be full with every minute detail of my trip. I'll leave the adventuring to you adventurists, and the next time any of you hears me say, "I'm going on an Adventure!" just save me the trouble and shoot me in the foot.
Spring Travel

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