Qingcheng Shan Day 2 (Houshan)
PIC: Hiking Chinese-style at Qingcheng Houshan
I climbed down the front of Qingcheng Shan after some spicy noodles and finding out that I couldn't go to Qingcheng Houshan ("back mountain") from the front of the mountain. I stopped and bought some good herbal tea on the way down called "Green Water" (lu shui) for Conor, but didn't drink any because teahouse prices increased the closer to the foot of the mountain that one travels. Once I made it to the foot of the mountain I had no idea how to get to Houshan. As I passed over the bridge leading to the road to Houshan (on foot), two men approached me with the aim of convincing me to ride with them. One was a motorcyclist in a business suit, and the other drove a van. The motorcyclist offered to take me to Houshan for 10, so I turned to the van driver for his offer, and he said 40. The motorcycle being cheaper, I hopped on board and off I went.
PIC (above): Me and my tits on the cable car, Qingcheng Houshan
PIC (below): The Houshan cable car
I discovered that going on foot would have been impossible with my time constraint. Some 40 minutes later I arrived at the cable car up the mountain. Figuring I'd already tempted fate on the motorcycle ride up the winding mountain roads, I took the rickety cable car ride halfway up the mountain. Houshan was a beautiful hike. Waterfall after waterfall after waterfall on planked platforms raised above the water, bridges, and stairs. the scenery is natural and nearly temple-free, a welcome change to secular scenery after so many similar temples. Indy and danolgb would have loved this: it feels like the Swiss Family Robinson tea house and the Indiana Jones Adventure combined with waterfalls.
PIC (above): View of Qingcheng Shan from Qingcheng Houshan
PIC (below): Houshan Waterfall and pavilion
The hike began off the cable car. I rounded a corner of the mountain and nearly stepped on a snake, who was as startled as me, and slithered off quickly. My heart stopped and I gasped reactively, one of the few occasions in my life a situation forced a gasp from me. Soon I came to a small lake that one must cross by boat. After crossing I met a group of middle class Chinese kids who spoke almost no English. They were 3 girls and 1 guy. All of the girls were barefoot and carrying their high heeled shoes, wore flashy clothes, jewelry, and makeup. They looked ready for a night of clubbing rather than hiking trails. We stopped at nearly every snack stand to have little nibbles like spicy tofu soup, spicy mountain potato on skewers, and spicy tofu skewers. Amazingly, they paid for everything! They wouldn't let me pay nary a fen. I felt that finally I was having a good streak meeting locals. We decided to skip the peak in the interest of time and walked down under the cable car instead. On the way, one of the girls tripped and stubbed her toe quite badly. The guy burned some paper and rubbed the ashes into the wound before wrapping the toe in tissue. I never heard of anyone doing that to a wound, but the ashes stopped the bleeding. Of course, why they wore high heels in the first place...
PIC: The ladies. Girl in the foreground stubbed her toe.
Time flew by, and we moved slowly because of the injured girl. Once we made it to the town at the base of Qingcheng Houshan, I had already missed the last bus to the main gate, from where I could hop on the bus to Dujiangyan where I could find the bus to Chengdu. The Chinese kids didn't help me and instead insisted that I have dinner with them and stay at their hotel and take the bus in the morning. Of course, when I had them ask the hotel staff where I could catch a bus, the staff insisted there was no bus to be had--they wanted me as their customer! I knew there was one more bus from the main gate if I could get there in time, and I became increasingly angry and frustrated with the unhelpful attitude of the Chinese kids. I had only 100 kuai in my wallet. Staying another night would make it impossible for me to return at all, as there was no ATM on the mountain, and any hotel would cost at least 100 kuai for the night.
PIC (above): The platforms...watch your feet!
PIC (below): Waterfall and bridge
In desperation, I started to walk-run along the side of the mountain road to try to reach the main gate in time. I realized that this was silly, and stuck my hand out to hitchhike. Thankfully, right away a motorcycle stopped and agreed to take me to the main gate for 30 kuai. He didn't use as much caution as my first motorcyclist in the business suit and took the curves of the dark mountain road straight to minimize turning and maximize speed, honking to warn any oncoming drivers that he was in the wrong lane. I had no helmet. Many cars, motorcycles, and military trucks whizzed beside us, and we weaved in and out of them at 100km per hour. Some 10 minutes later we arrived at the main gate, what had taken me 40 minutes during daytime going the reverse route. The bus had already filled up with people and departed the main gate, so I negotiated for a 20 kuai ride to Dujiangyan, some one hour away by bus, if he could get me there in 30 minutes so I could grab the last bus to Chengdu.
PIC: Platform and a peeking waterfall
The freeways seemed nearly as bad as the mountain roads, but not having 1000 foot dropoffs calmed me down despite near misses every 5 minutes and cramping legs. One half-hour later we arrived in Dujiangyan, and the cyclist found me a bus to Chengdu that cost only 16 kuai. However, I owed him 50 kuai and only had my 100 kuai bill, and he had no change. He directed me to board the bus and promised to return with my change. Here I nearly panicked: this was my last 100 kuai. 100 - 50 = 50 after paying him. 50 - 16 = 34 left after bus fare. I couldn't pay for the bus without the change nor could I do anything like get a taxi or spend a night in Dujiangyan without it. I feared he would wait for the bus to leave and leave me high and dry. Thankfully he returned with my change, and I spent a claustrophobic hour on the bus to Chengdu hoping the bus trip ended somewhere within a 34 kuai taxi radius of the hostel.
PIC: yet another beautiful waterfall
The bus dropped me off at an unrecognizable bus station in a part of Chengdu not on my map. The first taxi driver I hailed couldn't read and didn't recognize the street name of the hostel. Neither did the next two taxi drivers I flagged down. Finally, a taxi driver with license number 00169--a very low number meaning he has been a driver for a significantly long time--nodded yes, and I jumped in his cab. However, he had to radio other cab drivers for the location of the street; I've never seen a cabbie in China use his radio for anything, so I worried. Eventually his cries of "Laowai, laowai, Xing Hui Xi Lu zai na er?" ("Foreigner, foreigner, where is Xing Hui Xi Street?") won him a response and 29 kuai later I walked into the door of the hostel with 5 kuai in my pocket. They gave me a room and told them to pay them the following day.
So, today I climbed down a mountain, climbed up another mountain, rode bitch on a motorcycle twice and took a cable car, bus, and taxi. Not bad!