Climbed Mount Hua, Made Local Photo Studio Workers Instant Millionaires

August 1, 2009 at 7:17 pm (China, Xi'an)
Tags: Bad Sleep, Chinese Tourists, East Peak, Huashan, Mount Hua, South Peak, West Peak

Don’t forget to check my post from yesterday too!

Oh we got up on time for the sunrise alright… not by choice though. Last night must have been the worst sleep I’ve ever had. It wasn’t until I went to lie in bed that I noticed that it was rock hard. I ended up taking sheets from another bed so that I can make some sort of padding for mine. It helped, but not much. I also lost one of the earbuds for my headphones. The night wasn’t looking too pretty. I got to sleep, until 2:00am. When the Chinese people in the room, with complete disregard for the others in the room (Marianne and I), got up, turned the lights on, began talking loudly, making phone calls, getting ready to head out. I was raging inside. They eventually left, but then new people began showing up to the room, and one of them drove me absolutely insane. The most insane snoring I’ve ever heard! This guys wasn’t breathing in between snores… I’m  surprise he didn’t have a stroke or a heart attack or something… I filmed the guy, but the Internet is so bad here that I can’t upload any photos or videos… It’s kinda pissing me off…

Yeah, try sleeping through that. He was in the bed right next to mine but what’s even crazier is that his son was sleeping right next to him in the same bed! How did he manage to sleep through that?! Anyways, it wasn’t until about 6:00am, after one final snore, that I said “F*** THIS!” and got up. At that very moment, someone went to tell the snoring man to turn on his side, and then… it was quiet… so quiet! I could’ve slept if that man would’ve just gotten up earlier. It’s safe to say that I didn’t sleep last night, and I gravely needed it. I had to suck it up, it was time to head out and visit the peaks of Mount Hua; five in total.

We were allowed to leave our luggage at the reception (thank God!) so I only needed to bring my daypack with all my valuables. I felt so light the minute I stepped out of the Hotel! Compared to yesterday that is… There were plenty of stairs to test me out, and by the time we left after the sun had completely risen (around 6:45am), we almost had the mountain to ourselves. This is China after all; you can never have anything to yourself, and that’s a damn shame because Chinese people need to learn a lesson from Canadians on how to preserve natural sites.

It was disgusting. There were garbage cans pretty much everywhere, but nobody seemed to care since garbage was anywhere but the garbage cans. It was loud and the Chinese men were spitting everywhere, as per usual. I felt so discouraged. The initial hike up the mountain was incredible, probably since not many Chinese tourists dare take it. No, they choose the cableway and do the rest on foot. I was ahead of Marianne most of the time, but we both felt the same way; discouraged and disgusted. It’s a shame to see such a beautiful mountain get wasted like that. We even saw staff throwing garbage down the mountain face! So disgraceful…

Anyways, it wasn’t all bad. Our first destination was the East Peak (and the Central Peak along the way), after which we would circuit around to the South Peak, then the West Peak, and then finally finish back at the North Peak. The whole thing went up 600 metres in altitude, and totalled 12 kilometres all around. It was a lot of stairs, some steep ladder-style climbs, particularly the “Cloud Ladder”, but they weren’t very long. We hadn’t eaten breakfast since I wasn’t exactly craving a bowl of noodles so early in the morning, but after a while, I was getting really hungry, and my energy was running on empty. However, we had agreed to reach the East Peak before we sat down and ate.

The East Peak was about 500 metres higher than where we left off, and we made it there in about an hour and a half. The view was spectacular! We made our own little way up beyond a “No Crossing” sign, mainly because we wanted to get away from the throngs of people and all the garbage. It was worth it. Sunshine was pouring over the mountain chain, and there were a few clouds to enhance the view. We enjoyed the view for a bit. I even went over the chains to sit right on a ledge that had a really long way down, but Marianne panicked and was insisting that I get got back on the safe side of the chains. I laughed at her worrying (she wouldn’t look at me because she was scared that I would fall over), but I listened. We took a few photos and then went to the East Peak Hotel restaurant, “A Sparrow Hauk”. Surprise surprise, we had a bowl of noodles… not exactly tasty, but I was too hungry to care. I needed some energy to keep hiking.

We finished breakfast and made it to the South Peak (the highest peak of Moun Hua standing at 2154.7 metres). Once again, we were rewarded with some magnificent views, but the clouds were becoming a little thicker, and the air a little cooler. The cold air felt good. We snapped a couple more photos, and started making our way to the West Peak. The distance was short, so we made it there in no time. There was a “Furnace of Immortal Medicine Making” that wasn’t anything like the title described, but I guess the furnace could’ve been the clouds that were rushing up the mountain face.  At this point, we were coming across a lot of Chinese tourists. And believe me, there were LOTS! Hundreds, if not thousands! There were traffic hams in stairs leading to the Peaks. Surprisingly we didn’t ANY foreigners on the mountain (not until we got back to the North Peak anyways, at which point we saw about 5). Marianne and I were asked to be in a photo with some Chinese people (they love it), and little did we know, we were about to become the biggest Chinese tourist attraction of Mount Hua for the day.

Once at the West Peak, we came across a lot of Chinese tourists. One of them eventually asked to take a photo with us, and to our surprise and enjoyment, that set off a chain reaction! We were swarmed by Chinese tourists wanting to take pictures with us. We must have taken over 75 photos, often with the same person. I felt my cheek muscles aching from all the smiling, but it was so funny and such a good time. As soon as one picture was taken, we were asked by someone else, and then someone else, and this went on for at least 45 minutes. None of them spoke English, but we tried our best to communicate with each other through sign language. The same person was taking all of the photos. At first, we thought this person was a tour guide or something, but it turns out that he was running one of those souvenir photo booths on the West Peak! Everyone was paying between 10 to 60 Yuan to have their photo with us two foreigners printed! That place must have made a fortune thanks to us! The tourists kept coming. Some of them, the men in particular, were impressed by my size and kept grabbing my arms and comparing theirs to mine. It was funny when the women shot them down! LOL! They eventually asked Marianne and I to take a group photo with all of them, and then they printed us a copy for free! How nice of them! The tourists offered me to sit with them, and although I couldn’t hardly understand what they were saying, they figured out that I was Canadian, that I was in the army, and that Marianne was, in fact, NOT my girlfriend! I don’t know how people can get annoyed by this in China, I absolutely loved it! All of the discouragement that I felt throughout the day had melted away and my spirits had been rejuvenated from the experience. We said our goodbyes, shook some hands, got some thumbs ups, and started to head down the mountain.

It was SLOW! So many people going up and down. We were stopped dead in our tracks at times due to human congestion! Because of that, it took much longer than originally planned to get down the mountain, but the important thing is that we did. Hehe! On the way we saw a lot of the Chinese tourists we had taken photos with and they were all smiles. That feeling of fame felt good. Once back at the North Peak, we got our packs and took the cableway back down. It didn’t feel all too good putting that heavy pack on my back again, and I was too tired to walk down the mountain. Besides, it had started to rain. Haha!

Now I’m sitting in the slowest bus of life with absolutely no leg room heading back to Xi’an. We won’t be heading to Chengdu tonight since we’re clearly not going to make our train. Rather, we’ll be staying in Xi’an one more night; hopefully our hostel has room. I’m hungry, I want Pizza Hut. Stuffed Crust?

If I’m able to upload the photos, you’ll be able to see them here. There will also be some older ones from Xi’an that I wasn’t able to upload earlier here.

Bai-bai!

-LL

P.S. Why are you always trying to cheat me?! It is getting a little annoying when you have to haggle for EVERYTHING!