Choose Your Own Adventure

Last night, Mr. Hu drops me off at my hotel after dinner. Quizzically, he follows me in. A toddler squeals and starts towards him. I discover he is good friends with the family that runs my hotel. We come full circle - what are the odds!? The random cab I catch in Tunxi drops me off at a hotel associated with the roller-coaster-inducing Hu episode!? I get all frustrated with my lack of communication in Hangzhou, and the guy in the elevator asks me about Obama. I get frustrated with the taxi/hotel situation in Tangkou, and the inexpensive, English-speaking, incredibly helpful Mr. Hu is friends with the owners of my current hotel.

You just gotta laugh. Actually, this morning at breakfast, as I was waiting for my magma-like rice porridge to cool to a temperature approaching edible - or at least the flash point of paper - an old woman passing by the window spoke into mind, Jedi-like, "The cosmic sense of irony is strong in this one. Ummm."

By the way, at Mr. Hu's is the poster at right. I've heard the American armed forces are having some trouble recruiting. Get a poster like this!

Mr. Hu picks me up and I drop my main bag off at his place. I purposely brought a smaller bag for day trips. He's driving me to the trailhead (per his recommendation, I'm adding about 6 km to hike by some falls). I'm beginning to second guess myself (who woulda thought) as we're descending quite a bit, but then wow (actually, in Chinese it's "Waaaa"). You must click on this one to appreciate the detail of the valley.

Here's the trailhead. Nice. A little ways in, some of the Chinglish is just so inadvertently insightful, I decied to start calling them Chinglishdom's (sticking wis-"dom" on the end). Turns out I'm hiking through Nine Dragon Falls, one of the locations that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was shot at (remember maybe two thirds of the way through, right around the sword fight in the bamboo canopy, she floats down a large granite face and alights near a pool?). But click on the sign at left. This translation is "Lie the tiger to hide the dragon." Whoa (er, waaa). If accurate, that's a very, very interesting difference. A greater danger/power - the dragon - is using a lesser, but still threatening power - a tiger - as a subterfuge. In this translation, the tiger is a feint.

I get to Nine Dragon Pavilion, above the falls. There are no dragons. Maybe they should call it...wait for it...Nein Dragon Pavilion (ba-DUND chishhhh. Hey, don't forget to tip your wait staff, you're a lovely crowd.) I'd say I'm sorry, but I'm not. But then, in Falls Viewing Pavilion, I see this mist rising along the mountainside. Amazing: it's a dragon. Humbly, I stand corrected. Below are pictures of Falls Viewing Pavilion from the trail below the falls, the falls themselves, and a lock with a date: this is what lovers leave to mark their moment.




Also from Falls Viewing Pavilion, my first good look at the surrounding countryside. It's beautiful. I continue on. I've come 2 km and there's another 4 km to the acutal Huangshan trailhead. The journey so far has not really been a hike, but a continual set of stairs. And now the stairs take a step (ha!) back a few centuries. I am alone on a mountainside, several kilometers from a road, and now I get to head up cracked, wet stairs on a 45 degree incline. Hurray! But the bamboo forest is really cool. Also, as I crest a ridge, I find tea plants being cultivated. Damn these farmers are tough: Hey Joe, er, Gao Ming, want to plant some tea a good hour's walk from anything else and a thousand feet up to boot?

The dragon mist hearlded a much greater wave of mist that blankets the valley below me. Whew, I think, glad I got above that. A few minutes later as the mist envelopes me, I think: why did I think it was done rising? Eventually, I stop climbing and begin a traverse. I take a break at an opening. Wow. And then, the dragon breathes again.


I reach Yunggu Monastery, which is the top of the Nine Dragon Falls trail, and the beginning of the Huangshan trail. Yes, it's all one trail, but there's a road, and more importantly, separate entrance fees to pay : ). Since there is a road (and a cable car, but c'mon), there are tourist shops. It's 11 am, I'm ready for some lunch, and preferably something warm. Now I know this is a total overstatement, but for once I feel kind of Chinese. I buy two hardboiled eggs (liang3 ge ji1 dan3) from a vendor and a chocolate milk tea (i.e., hot chocolate). It's a good lunch.

Oh for the love of God, the stairs have gotten steeper. After a particularly steep section are some porters and a carryable chair. As the guidebook said, "...for the truely indolent," but you have to admire the porters' grasp of psychology. The clouds thicken, and while I see many sheer spires, pine beclad, fading in and out of the mist, these are the only two good pictures I get (below).

At one of the little stalls along the way that sell umbrellas, food, etc., I buy three apples (one for 5 yuan, three for 10 - I had a ten, she had no change). I just finished an apple, and I'm walking with a bag of two in my hand. An older porter (these guys carry all the stuff up and down the mountain for the hotels on top), is passing, we make eye contact, and then...then three things happen simultaneously. He motions towards the apples, a tight, contracted, self-righteous part of me says "No!" in my head, and I say out loud "Ni hao" (hello). And we're past. I walk on a bit more, and realize this part of me that acted like a selfish child, I've felt it before, at Christmas, right before I made a snide comment to my mother. I turn around and hasten back to find the porter - for Christ's sake, it's a 50-cent apple - but he has made tracks. I proceed to beat myself up for a while. But I'm not a bad person. Beating myself up for this misses the point. There is a part of me that is young, and the only way...way to get anywhere is to bring it into the light and help it grow. Conservation of energy: you can't get rid of (i.e., destory) a part of yourself, you can only love it and let it change into a different type of energy. Now, loving and allowing something to be is not the same as acting on its impulses. But twice now I've tasted its energy and next time, in that small but infinite gap between feeling and action, I'll be kinder.


I near the top. It's cold. The wind freezes the misty clouds onto, well everything, even one of Nature's smallest creations. The one thing I have forgotten is crampons: the stairs are getting coated in ice. Thankfully, at the store at the top of the cable car, I can buy some pseudo-ones.

The top of Huangshan is actually a series of ridge-connected peaks. I first try to get to my hotel. I have a dorm room for the first time. After a wrong turn, I finally get there. Nice. The dorm room,
however, is primitive. Part of me thinks, I'll just get a regular room and spend the $200. But, since I'm resistant to staying in the room - there's nothing actually wrong with it except it is pushing my "I don't want to be poor"-button - I will stay in it. I spend the next couple hours exploring and heading up Purple Cloud Peak in a forlorn hope to catch even a glimpse of something beside cloud and blowing mist. I get some pics I like.


I am warm and dry in my raingear and layers. I stand under an ice-coated tree, eating a granola bar and looking out over a 1000-foot cliff as the wind gusts 40 mph, rain falls sideways, rolls of mist whip over the passes, the spires do their dance with the mist, and the day darkens. I am content.











These two are my favorite. Click on them to see the details. Good night,



Dan