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Published: August 13th 2009
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After another night in the train, I arrived at Xi'an about 1 pm. I was a lot more tired than after the other night trains, because this time I traveled on a
hard sleeper. Because there was no space anymore for my backpack, I put it on my bed as I also did on my previous trips. But because the beds are definitely smaller, I almost had no room anymore for my legs. Because with the hard sleeper, there are three beds on top of each other, instead of two which is the case for a soft sleeper. So it is impossible to sit up, not even a little... So I decided, I will permit myself a soft sleeper again next time.
After arrival, I tried to buy my next train ticket in the train station, which is not recommended at all in the LP. Why so, I wonder, because it went really easy and quick. Next, I tried to find the bus for
Hua Shan. Of course, this was also a piece of cake. The explanation of the ticket price went a bit more difficult, but luckily there was a girl on the bus that could translate it for
us (there was one other Western tourist on the bus). We were dropped off at a hotel in Hua Shan village and there they did a talk to everyone in the bus. I was a bit suspicious, because I thought they probably wanted to sell us something. It turned out to be an explanation of the walk up the mountain and part of the bus service.
The other Western tourist started the walk, but because it was recommended to me to walk at night, I booked a room in the hotel. Much more expensive than I normally sleep in, but this time I had a double room ensuite and I could stay until 2 pm next day.
I asked the Chinese girls from the bus who could speak English if I could join them for diner. They also started the
climb at night, so they asked me if I would join them. It was really fun to talk to them and of course much better to do such a climb with others, so I was very happy with their offer. In between, I tried to get some sleep, which didn't really work although I did have a rest.
At 10:15 pm we started the walk equipped with a torch, water and some food. The LP stated that the first four kilometers are easy and that than the road get tougher. It turned out that I totally don't agree with this description. From the start, the road goes up, at some parts already very steep. It turned out to be a never ending hike. After some kilometers, there were
only steps, steps, steps and steeper steps. Sometimes so small that it was only possible to take them sideways. Sometimes so steep that you could only climb on hands and feet.
The fun part was that it was
dark, so the views (if you could see something) were amazing in the moon light. Perhaps even funnier is that I was the only Western tourist that climbed the mountain. 90%!o(MISSING)f the people were Chinese students from the area. Some of them tried their only English sentence on me, but my answer most of the time resulted in hard laughter by the other Chinese. I was lucky to have two translators with me, who sometimes translated what they said about me. Someone said 'she is so fit, she doesn't
even take a rest!'. This was obviously not true! I think I died about ten times on this mountain...
The reason to climb at night is to see the sunrise at one of the peaks. On my way up I was wondering how large this peak had to be to give space to all the people who climbed it. It turned out to be really small, so everyone had to fight for their space. Luckily for us, many people did not make it to the top and fell asleep somewhere on the way... We arrived at the peak at 5 am, so it took us more than 6 1/2 hours to reach the top (but we did rest a lot).
After having seen the
sunrise, I decided to go back halfway and take a cable car down from that point. So I left my Chinese friends on the top - they were going to the other peaks and were planning to walk all the way down. Without them I don't know if I would had made it to the top... The sun was burning and I actually run down the steps to the cable car. To my surprise,
Hua Shan at night
completely dark... the cable car took about 10 minutes going down strait.... I could not imagine I had climbed that high! But I was really glad to see my bed again!
The whole experience to climb a mountain in the dark with only Chinese was great. The walk up was much more difficult than I ever had expected. Especially because the Chinese themselves climbed it! Normally they take a bus or a cable car up the mountain, so I underestimated the trip a lot! I also cannot imagine how it is to do the ascend in the sun!
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Luc
non-member comment
Zo Tes, dat was dus weer een mooi avontuur. Volgens mij is het backpacken in China best zwaar en lastig als ik je verhalen zo lees. Wel weer mooie foto's en fijn dat je wat gezelschap hebt gevonden tijdens je hike. Hoe lang heb je nog voordat je in Harbin zit? Blijf genieten!! 關心 :P