Hua Shan

After a pleasant night's sleep in our two-star hotel, we left shortly after eight in the morning. We had a mediocre breakfast a restaurant nearby, which consisted of zhou (porridge), fried vegetables and some buns that the locals seem to like. We walked up the street and entered a temple on our way to the Huashan ticket gate. It turns out the student tickets are only ten kuai cheaper than the reglar ones (90 versus 100). Not much of a discount. There was a hilarious sign right after the ticket gate. The first two and a half hours of our ascent was through a verdant valley. Every half kilometer or so there was a shop selling food and water. Prices rose the further you up you went. Some of the nasty things on sale included a chicken foot in plastic and ancient eggs. Some of the bathrooms were truly awful. I felt sorry for all the porters that were carrying back-breaking loads up the mountain. The porters offered to be in tourist's photos to make more money. One porter even wanted us to see if we could lift his load. We could not. As the path gained altitude, it also gained steepness. A slight incline turned into stairs which progressively got steeper until we arrived at a section that was nearly vertical. Finally, shortly before one in the afternoon we got to the top. However, we only really got to the top of the North Peak, which is roughly 1500 M high. The back peaks are over 2000 M high. Therefore we decided to make a further trek up to the West Peak, the most picturesque of the peaks. It took about an hour and a half to get up there, although we did stop for a brief lunch of noodles on the way. The mountain itself is extremely beautiful, with luch vegetation interspersed with bare rock. The smog wasn't nearly as bad at higher heights, leading to fresher air. The top of the peak was pleasant, and the sense of achievement at having completed the climb was satisfying. As it was now nearing four inteh afternoon, we decided to head back down, fearful that the cable car could close at five. While we didn't want to take the cable car up, our legs were very sore, and facing a near vertical descent had little appeal for us. At the bottom of the cable car, we took a shuttle bus back to town and picked up or bags before heading to the train station.

The train station is not actually in the town of Huashan itself, but in a nearby town called Mengyuan. Unfortunately we were not able to get sleeper tickets to Pingyao, so we had to get hard seats! We also have to wait until one in the morning to leave! We rented a room in the worst hotel I have ever seen to store our luggage during our down time. The room was filthy and I didn't want to lie down. One look at the bathroom made my stomach turn. We went to dinner but wanted to avoid the restauarants near the train station. We walked quite distance and got a an area where a kid was yelling 'laowai' at us constantly. That was enough for me. We went back up the road and went into a whole in the wall restuarant where we ate jiaozi. After dinner, we went back to the rvolting hotel. While the other two members of my group napped, I could not due to how horrible the place was.

I was delighted to leave at around 12:30 AM and we got on the train with no problem. Besides us, there were only four other people getting on the train at the station. While I was initially delighted that the train was a double-decker, my delight turned to dismay when we got on the train and saw that it was over-sold and there were people roaming around. We had assigned seats, thank goodness, and we had to kick some Chinese people out of our seats. I initially could not sleep because Martin was talking to the girl sitting next to us. She was interesting enough though, and when I didn't feel like shutting my eyes, I participated. She was studying in Xian and was going home for the holiday. Her name was Zhou Fan, and as she didn't have an English name, I suggested giving her the name Josephine, but she wasn't too keen. After she got off the train at around three, things quieted down, and I fell into a restless sleep. I woke up at around six with a very sore neck and very tired. The train was positively filthy by this time, with garbage everywhere and appalling bathrooms. Crouch toilets do not work well on trains, as people can miss. Shortly before eight AM we pulled into Pingyao.