Sunday, November 26
When we woke up this morning the Victoria 5 was docked in the small city of Guichi. Art took the bus to Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) and he will make the journal entry for that outing. I stayed on the boat because the cruise director said the bus ride to Huang Shan is four hours each way, and there are many stairs at the destination. I think my fear of heights might have kept me from enjoying the excursion.
I took the morning easy – went up to the bar and bought a cup of coffee to drink while I was catching up on my journal entries, then went to the room and watched “Boys Don’t Cry” . We had no outside television on the cruise, so we had no idea what was going on in the outside world, including the outcome of the presidential election. And no phone. We didn’t feel isolated from the world most of the time because we were busy. But in my downtime I found myself itching to find a computer and check my email, or turn on CNN and catch up on the happenings of the world.
There was a guided walking tour of Guichi scheduled for 2 pm, but Shari and I were restless to be on our own. After lunch we asked at the front desk of the boat for directions on how to get off. We were given boarding passes and shown to the crew exit a deck below. Shari and I went for a walk. First we watched workers carrying long bamboo poles from what I’d call a “Chinese lumberyard” down the riverbank and across bamboo planks to barges. The workers had a fine sense of balance, both in carrying a pole on each shoulder and in making their way down the riverbank. Then we walked about two miles down the main street of town.
Guichi is described as a “small city” on the cruise ship newsletter, but it’s not small by American standards. All along our route the adults stared – I’d been told that would happen – and school-aged children said “hello”. When we returned the greeting they often giggled. They said “Nice to meet you.” Clearly they were glad for a chance to speak their English to us.
Eventually I knew I needed to find a bathroom, but there were no public restrooms. I went into a small bank where four women were working behind a mesh screen. I said, “English?” One of the ladies came forward. I said, “Toilet?” She led me into a back room and one of the other ladies gave me some paper. That was my third encounter with a Chinese toilet. It was like a utility room, clean, just like you’d expect to find in the restroom of a commercial establishment at home. When I came out I shook hands with the young woman, saying “thank you”, and with all the other women, saying “shih-shih” (that’s thank you, my other Chinese word). They seemed delighted at the exchange.
The sky was gray all day, and the town was pretty gray as well. It looked like the buildings were built 20 or 30 years ago and were slowly deteriorating due to lack of maintenance.
Just the same, it was great to walk the four miles, and not just for the exercise. We passed all kinds of shops – not just food places, but a computer store, a store selling Western toilets, clothing stores. The shops we saw were not for the tourists – as I said to Shari, I did not see a single roll of film for sale. Very few stores had English words accompanying their Chinese signs. We saw only one other Caucasian face the whole time. It was totally charming to meet the people. Escaping the American bubble was really energizing. I bet Art didn’t have a better time at Huang Shan than I did in Guichi.
Just before dinner, I treated myself to a foot massage!
Now for Art’s day. This is what the reference book says about Huang Shan, or Yellow Mountain:
Rearing over southern Anhui, Huang Shan – the Yellow Mountains – are one of eastern China’s greatest sights. An old saying claims that once you’ve ascended their peaks you will never want to climb another mountain, and certainly the experience is staggeringly scenic, with pinnacles emerging from thick bamboo forests, above which rock faces dotted with ancient, contorted pine trees growing from narrow ledges disappear into the swirling mists. These views seem often familiar, for Huang Shan’s landscape has left an indelible impression on Chinese art, and painters are a common sight on the paths, huddled in padded jackets and sheltering their work from the incipient drizzle beneath umbrellas – the more serious of them spend months at a time up here.
Art’s journal entry:
As an ancient pilgrimage site trodden by emperors and Communist leaders alike, Huang Shan is regarded as sacred in China, and it’s the ambition of every Chinese to conquer it at least once in their lifetime. Consequently, don’t expect to climb alone; multitudes swarm along the neatly paved paths, or crowd out the three cable car connections to the top. All this can make the experience feel like visiting a huge amusement park, but then you’ll turn a corner and come face to face with a huge, smooth monolith topped by a single tree, or be confronted with views of a remote square of forest growing isolated on a rocky platform. Nature is never far away from reasserting itself here.
We started out early in the morning. It was still dark. We were traveling through the little villages with people starting to go to work. The road wasn’t that crowded at that time. However, the fog and the rain were settling in, and most of the trip we could barely see the side of the road.
This gave me an opportunity to attempt to dismantle the camera. Getting five of the seven screws out was the best I could do. I ended up putting them back and giving it up as a lost cause.
I could tell we were getting further away from the city because of the lack of traffic. We arrived at the city of Taiping at the base of the mountain. Taiping is not usually the main access to the mountain, but there had been a rockslide at the primary access, so we had to go around the mountain.
We had lunch. The guides were trying to talk us out of going up in the cable car because it was raining and foggy. They said we wouldn’t see anything. After four and a half hours of bus ride, I felt like going to the top no matter what.
The cable car held 59 people. We had to take two loads to include the two other tour buses from the boat. Going up the mountain it was still foggy and rainy. Every once in a while we would see the ground below, which was very steep. The ride took about 25 minutes. Upon reaching the top, the tour guide said we would only be there for two hours. As we disembarked, the clouds parted and the sun came out. We had a beautiful sunshiny day.
My first concern was finding a bathroom. I found a pay toilet. By the time I came out, the tour group was gone so I was on my own.
I went to the edge of the walk. On the way, I caught up with the guides, who told me about the oldest tree on the mountain, a 7000-year-old black tiger pine, and the dragon’s claw, which was the bare roots of a tree. There was also a tree that had two trunks which they called the Lovers Tree. The souvenir stand sold locks so that lovers could put their lock on the chain around the Lovers Tree and it would be there forever. Most of the locks for sale were heart shaped.
I had thought that the monoliths and the high mountains with the sparse trees were just an artist’s conception, and all of a sudden, there it was, in real life! I walked around all the paths and up on the lookouts at about six different positions and photographed what I could. I was attempting to find a way out to a monolith that had some stones placed on the very top. It appeared there was a path up to that. When I finally found the path to get out to the peak, the fog had started coming back in, and I didn’t want to be left stranded out in the middle of nowhere. So I returned to the tram station. On the way pack, I pocketed a piece of the mountain to take home to a Chinese friend of mine. I got a medallion with a ram (for my birth year) that said I had been on the mountain.
On the trip down there were two of us that were overload for what the tram could carry, but the guides talked the operator into including us. When we loaded on to the tram, they told us to suck it up, and four workers got on to ride down also. This was surely a pack of sardines!
The bus trip back was very uneventful. It was raining and foggy and, again, we couldn’t see the road. I knew the road was crowded, though, because I could hear horns honking. It was a very long and tiring trip.
Two weeks after we got home from China, I was at a meeting where my Chinese friend was present. I talked about my trip to Huang Shan. I said, “Since I couldn’t take you to Yellow Mountain, I have brought Yellow Mountain to you.” I gave him the stone from Yellow Mountain. My friend was overjoyed.