I enjoy taking December holidays in cold places. Having done 东北 and 西北 the last two years, I decided to make my trip to 黄山 to see the infamous 长青松柏 (evergreen pine trees) this December.
Day #1 - 7 Dec 2017
The trip started with me finding ¥100 on the ground at 海上世界 while walking to dinner. Not a bad start!
But the plane ride was a nightmare. As with many things in this place, hardware is great, it’s always the software that’s the issue. I was sitting on the aisle seat and the two passengers on the aisle seats in front of me talked so loudly that one might mistake them for trying to broadcast their conversation to all passengers on the plane. And boy, they talked non-stop for the entire 1 hour 45 min. After take off, my silly brain decided that it might be a good idea to move to the window seat away from their loud conversation, and nightmare no. 2 started. The toddler behind me kept kicking the chair (which was bearable, I mean, it’s like free massage) and after going at it for some time decided to kick the table up and down continuously. Now, that’s annoying. I turned around to look at the Mother and told her nicely to stop her toddler from misbehaving. She had the audacity to stare at me unapologetically, as if it was my fault that I felt uncomfortable. I stared back at her and she tried half heartedly to stop her toddler. Food was served and life was back to normal with the occasional kicking which I have come to acceot as free back massage. Then, when the toddler finished his food, the table banging resumed. I kept quiet and fell asleep but got rudely awoken by a heavy bang of the table against the back of my head. I turned back and gave the family a deadly stare and the dad was polite enough to apologise. Meanwhile, the passengers in front continued to broadcast their conversation; how the hell can anyone talk so loudly for so long?!
I finally landed in 黄山屯溪机场 and breezed through immigration. Not having any check in luggage is awesome. I had a pleasant surprise when I reached my hotel in 屯溪老街 . It’s a tastefully done up boutique hotel with wood furniture, a tranquil lil garden, and a lobby with modern oriental design. The best thing is - it’s awesomely quiet! 😃 I do need the silence very much; my ears ached from my plane ride.
Day #2: 宏村 + 西递
I felt a lil having to leave my lil sanctuary in the hotel. On hindsight, this hotel was the best thing of the whole trip. At least it was quiet.
宏村 and 西递 were alright. Perhaps I’ve seen too many old villages in China. It feels like Chins has so many ancient villages that what it takes to make one a tourist attraction are money and marketing. Ok but I learnt some stuff, like 安徽 is well known for its biz men 徽商 , it’s the province that produced the largest no. of imperial scholars in Song, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties combined, and some of these ancient houses built by the rich and famous then are still inhabited by their descendants today. It was rather weird to kind of visit houses with gold gilded walls inhabited by poor descendants today; one of the house owners demanded RMB1 from a fellow tourist for taking photos in the house. One of those houses were built at a cost equivalent to RMB70mil today. Sanitation and ventilation in those expensive houses seemed poor too.
I also concluded from this trip that I’m not touching 徽菜 for the rest of my life. 毛豆腐 was the worst ever tofu I’ve tasted; 臭鳜鱼 was indeed very 臭; and their 烧饼 tasted really weird 😨 The random snacks I had, like 桂花糕 were underwhelming too.
I also realised there’s quite a lot of Taiwanese tourists at Huangshan, compared to the other places I’ve visited in China. And of course, loads of Cantonese people too. It’s true that Guangdong is a rich province. U see Cantonese tourists everywhere u visit in China.
Day #3: 黄山
Finally, I was on my way to 黄山，which was the principal purpose of this trip. The scenery was beautiful, yes. But the sheer number of people pushing, talking at the top of their voices, shouting, spitting, turning on their music on loud speakers and smoking in non smoking areas was enough to kill the joy. By evening time I was looking forward to leaving the mountain. Crowds stress me out, my ears hurt. 😩😨😢😭 I also concluded that I’m way fitter than the average Chinese. I spent a lot of time waiting for people omg. I think if I’ve done the trip myself I’d have taken at most 75% of the time.
Somehow I’m kind of underwhelmed by Huangshan. Perhaps cos I expected too much and the experience of fighting with so many people to see the scenery (yes it was that bad, there were so many heads and humans blocking my view) killed all the joy. I had to push people to capture a shot of the sunset. And it’s supposedly lulll season?! I can’t imagine how the crowds would be like if I had come in spring summer or autumn.
If it was as quiet as Banff /Jasper, I’d probably have loved it.
The only good thing that happened on Day 3 was I paid a lot of money for a double room. Thank goodness I didn’t scrimp on accommodation. I can’t imagine bunking in with crazy tourists talking and snoring loudly. Most of the accommodation at the top of the mountain is bunk bed style, 8-10 people in a room. My room cost a whopping RMB1000+ a night. But the silence and peace was worth it. Like totally.
Day #4: 黄山 + 上海
I’m sitting at the bus station now waiting for the coach to take me to SH. Yay! I left earlier and didn’t wait for the tour group to eat their lunch, and managed to get ticket for the 2pm bus! 😃😂 I spent the whole morning waiting for people and pushing people so I had wanted to get out of Huangshan asap. Dream came true!
The coach would take me 6 hours at ¥135 while the high speed train would take be 4 hours at ¥305. Notwithstanding the fact that I didn’t get my train tickets in time, taking the coach seemed more value for money :D
Ok, I’m totally looking forward to my civilised 2 day holiday in Shanghai 😃
No comments:
Post a Comment