SACRED MOUNTAIN DAY!

We woke up at 3:15 am by cell phone alarm and dressed to meet a new driver at 3:30. He drove us back to the same gate. I guess we were counting on the people to let us in. The gate turned out to be closed, so we took some side steps, which it turns out we could have taken the whole time. We climbed to a hut where a nicer guy sold us a 200 yuan ticket. He just said to go slow and be careful. There were several Chinese men going up before and after us. They appeared to be workers at the mountain. We began our climb at about 4am in complete darkness, using two flashlights. It was somewhat scary but a cool feeling to be climbing a mountain that early. We saw a big toad on the path, a stream trickled down to the right of the path. We had packed our packs with water and food, which turned out to be very heavy, and made the climb even more difficult.

The hike was almost ALL very steep stairs, with only a few scattered platforms and landings as rest areas. It curved around with the stream. Around 4:30 the sky became a little pink and we were able to go without flashlights. We got out of breath very quickly and rested often. We had hoped to make it to the top by sunrise, but the sun came up around 5:00. We quickly realized we were on the western side of the mountain, and thus taking the ‘western steps,’ which the lonely planet describes as “the longer harder way” and “a precarious route hewn out of sheer rock cliffs.” They recommended taking an easier way up and coming down this way for the beautiful scenery.

We climbed for about 3 hours, stopping for food, water, and pictures. We came to a platform and had to choose right or left – we went right, following more people.

We finally reached a peak, the capital celestial apex, around 7am. It was 1810 meters high. The view was gorgeous and we had the peak to ourselves for about ½ an hour. We could see the hotel on another area, and it was packed with people. There were locks attached to the chains at the top with hearts and names carved out, signifying love forever.

As we descended there were a lot more people coming up, and we were grateful that we had started so early and had the top to ourselves for awhile. We decided to try to take the easier eastern steps down, thinking it would be a good change of scenery and maybe a little easier on our bodies. However, we had to climb around the mountaintops for a couple more hours to find them.

We climbed up the other path to the left and went through the major hotel area. It was like walking through times square – it was SO crowded! And of course we had to deal with the Chinese pushing again, so we had to become that way too in order to get anywhere. The worst part was climbing a very narrow step path. People were slow and kept stopping to take pictures which made everyone else stop.

Despite these frustrations, the views were gorgeous and we got in a solid workout. After going up and down for awhile we finally found the eastern steps and started our three hour descent. These steps had more and longer landings, and thus were a bit easier, however it was really hard on our knees coming down.

We also had to weave in and out of the stick men, who were carrying all of the hotel supplies up and down the mountain. We couldn’t believe that they didn’t use the cable cars! These stick men had amazing endurance and really strong big calf muscles. They carried everything, including sheets and towels, beer, water, vegetables and other food. I hope that they get paid a lot! They also had men who would carry people up and down in a chair for 400 yuan. We saw one guy riding like this – it looked ridiculous, and I felt really bad for the workers!

The entire hike took 10 hours. We definitely felt as though we conquered yellow mountain! Upon reaching the bottom we took a van back to where we had left our things. We left them at the place we had dinner, and they expected us to have lunch there also. We did, and collected our things, then took a taxi to Tunxii (1 ½ hours), where the driver had called ahead to a contact. We were dropped off at some random restaurant where we sat in hot, humid heat, for 20 minutes. Then we were led about 2 blocks to a random hotel, where a bus picked us up. We then took the bus about 3 hours to Hanzhou.

The point of this was to get closer to Suzhou and Shang’hai so there was less travel time the next day. It began storming and the lightning was neat to see across the horizon. We took a taxi from the bus to the International Youth Hostel. Hanzhou is supposedly the most famous tourist attraction in China because of West Lake. As we drove in, the city appeared very ritzy and wealthy, and we even saw Porsche and Mini dealerships. The city is right on the lake, as was our hostel.

We checked in and looked at further tickets. We found a cheap plane ticket back to Beijing for Friday morning, so we scrapped Shang’hai from the schedule and planned to go to Suzhou for the day, staying in Hanzhou both nights.

We walked a ways to get to dinner because we kept finding neon-lit expensive restaurants on the lake. We finally found a noodle shop and had noodles, potatoes, and egg and tomato dishes. It was hot sitting in the restaurant, and we were all pretty delirious since we’d gotten up at 3:15. We hadn’t showered since climbing, and finally returned to the hostel for showers and sleep.