Huangshan
September 16-17, 2005
Where Painters Get Their Inspiration
The
Yellow Mountain is one of the places where Chinese painters for centuries have
found inspiration. Craggy mountains, pine trees clinging to steep cliffs, clouds
wafting through the valleys – it’s all here. The clouds didn’t fully cooperate
during my trip, but everything else was present, and it does make for some
phantastic scenery. Humans have added to the spectacle with colorful names
– the various “seas” of clouds, the “Monkey Gazing at the Sea”, the “Cloud
Dispersing Pavilion”, the “Guest-Welcoming Pine”, the “Refreshing Terrace”.
Civilization and Nature
German
and American expectations for how to experience mountains don’t apply here.
There’s no hiking along dirt trails, no quiet communing with nature, no rustic
mountain huts. Huangshan is fully developed and civilized. Three cable cars
are ready to whisk you up to the mountain plateau or back down. The trails
are all paved, and mostly consist of stairs going up, up, up or down, down,
down. The population density on the trails rivals that of Wangfujing (although
that street is a bit wider), and the guides with their portable PA systems
drown out any birds that might be singing on the mountain. Trash receptacles
are spaced so closely along the trails that it’s hard to miss them when dropping
something, and in case that still happens, garbage collectors are ready to
clean up. The hotels are real hotels, with all amenities from hot showers via
foot massage parlors to restaurants, stocked by an army of porters that bring
in the supplies. Cell phone coverage is excellent all around the plateau.
Sunrise
The sunrise is a mandatory item on the agenda here. 
Ours
was at 5:52, and since the better views are often before the actual sunrise,
I get out of the hotel at 5:20. There’s no doubt about where to go – just follow
the crowds, and the Refreshing Terrace is the natural destination. There are
no real clouds above and just some haze below, so it’s not the most impressive
sunrise ever, but it’s good enough, and getting up early enables some other
fine photos and a long day hike.
Hiking
We took the easy way up, using the cable car, and then walked around near
the Beihai (“North Sea”) and Xihai (“West Sea”) hotels.
Eventually we get to
the Cloud Dispersing Pavilion, which
provides a splendid view into what one guide had called the “Grand Canyon”
of Huangshan. Apparently it’s a custom here for lovers to have their names
inscribed into locks and attach them to the guard chains. The trail gets more
interesting past the pavilion, but unfortunately it also gets dark and we have
to turn around.
The next day brings the big hike: From the Beihai hotel via the Bright Summit
Peak to Tianhai (“Sky Sea”), the climb to Lotus Peak, the highest peak of Huangshan,
then the steep descent to the Jade Screen Hotel. There are times where I don’t
want to look where I’m going because the stairs get so steep, beyond the stairs
is just nothing, and there’s not much to hold on to. At the hotel, my friend
and I part ways – she takes the cable car down, I continue the hike. By the
time I reach the valley, I must have climbed or descended some 5000 stairs
– since they’re evenly spaced, it didn’t feel too bad at the time, but the
following two days my legs reminded me that they aren’t really designed for
such use. 
But
if problems had shown up towards the end of the hike, I would have been well
taken care of – it turned out that the group that asked me to take a photo
of them part-way and with whom I then talked for the remainder of the hike
was a group of colleagues from a hospital in Shanghai, so I had a doctor and
several nurses around me.
Cross-Cultural Miscommunication
Booking the hotels turned into a bit of an adventure and an experience in cross-cultural miscommunication. I had called CITS, the biggest Chinese travel agency, in Beijing, and received a call back from somebody in Huangshan City (the brand name of Tunxi, a city about 70km from the mountain which hosts the airport). “Kenny” offered the hotel rooms at what seemed a reasonable rate, and offered to meet us in Tunxi where we could pay for the hotel stays in Tunxi and on Huangshan. Chinese friends confirmed that that’s not unusual in China. But when we finally reached the hotel, late at night after a delayed flight, we were surprised to find that there was nothing in writing available – no coupons, no contract, nothing other than spoken words in exchange for our cash. That seemed strange to us. And then our attempts at verifying things failed – the hotel on Huangshan couldn’t confirm our reservation when we called, and Kenny didn’t have an ID with him. According to Kenny, the hotel couldn’t help because their phone system had been damaged by a thunderstorm and the person receiving our call couldn’t reach the front desk, but because of language problems on both sides we couldn’t verify this story. Then Kenny called his general manager, who tried to convince me (in German, nevertheless!) that we should trust Kenny, but since I didn’t know the general manager either, that wasn’t too convincing. We then offered to call the hotel again in the morning and then go to Kenny’s office to pay there, but he didn’t like that idea; which in turn seemed yet more suspicious to us (you mean you don’t have an office?). After a long debate, we finally adjourned to meet again in the morning.
In the end, it all worked out. We called the hotel in the morning, they confirmed that everything was fine, we paid Kenny, and we got some nice rooms without any additional demands for payment. But it’s still not clear to me how I’m supposed to judge who I can trust in such situations, and why better documentation can’t be provided.