During the night on Fanjingshan, it rained a ton! I went to bed really early (around 8pm) because I was cold (I only have shorts with me right now), and there really wasn't anything to do anyways. I woke up around 11pm needing to go to the bathroom (why didn't I go before I went to bed????) and ended up using my cellphone to navigate the twenty or thirty steps down to the bathroom. After that I couldn't get to sleep forever, but I eventually fell asleep only to wake up at around 3am to the sounds of a fierce rain storm. There went my hopes of seeing the sunrise on the mountain (which is supposedly incredibly beautiful). I spent the next four hours in and out of sleep before finally deciding to wake up around 7am. The rain was still coming down pretty hard, and I spent the next couple of hours sort of hoping that the people that ran the place would wake up so I could eat breakfast.....it never happened, so I packed up my stuff, and got going around 9am.
At this point, the rain stopped almost instantly, and it turned out to be a beautiful day, although there were still clouds below me at a lower elevation. This made for incredible scenery - hiking above a sea of fluffy white clouds.
At 6888 steps, there was a Buddhist temple, beside which there was a restaurant where I picked up an ordinary miantiao (noodles) for an astonishing 12 yuan (regular on the ground - 3 yuan). I also picked up some batteries for 12 yuan (regular 2 yuan) because the spare batteries that I had bought in advance didn't work - I hate Chinese batteries - they are dirt cheap but they only work about half the time!
From there, it was a quick trip to the top - the view was absolutely incredible, and this has to be one of my favourite views that I have ever seen. I took heaps of pictures, and hopefully they came out all right - I'll add them to this site when I get home in about a week.
At this point, the rain stopped almost instantly, and it turned out to be a beautiful day, although there were still clouds below me at a lower elevation. This made for incredible scenery - hiking above a sea of fluffy white clouds.
At 6888 steps, there was a Buddhist temple, beside which there was a restaurant where I picked up an ordinary miantiao (noodles) for an astonishing 12 yuan (regular on the ground - 3 yuan). I also picked up some batteries for 12 yuan (regular 2 yuan) because the spare batteries that I had bought in advance didn't work - I hate Chinese batteries - they are dirt cheap but they only work about half the time!
From there, it was a quick trip to the top - the view was absolutely incredible, and this has to be one of my favourite views that I have ever seen. I took heaps of pictures, and hopefully they came out all right - I'll add them to this site when I get home in about a week.
This is one of my favorite pictures - I love the sea of clouds surrounding this mountain. It was so cool!
A look into the valley.
The rock that looks like it should be falling over.
Cool view of the Buddhist temple where I ate breakfast located beneath a large craggy rock - you can hike up it.
This is the path up the large craggy rock - the views from the top are incredible!
A nice waterfall near the bottom of the mountain.
Another small waterfall.
After that I came down the mountain, getting to the bottom at around 1am. I had been planning to spend the night in Jiangkou, and take a bus to Guiyang the next day, but when I got to Jiangkou, the bus that was listed on the board turned out not to be running anymore - and there was only one other bus that went to Guiyang each day and it was more expensive (154 yuan) and it was a daytime bus, so I would lose a day and still have to get a hotel (I like night trains/buses much better - you save the money that you would spend on a hotel, and you wake up in a new place - they are great!). So I decided to head back to Tongren (15 yuan) where there is a train station, in hopes that I could get a night train to Guiyang.
However, it turns out that the train line doesn't connect directly to Guiyang, so I had to first go to Huaihua (8 yuan train ticket - I love China!) and I ended up on an almost empty train - I've never been on a train like it, but it was very comfortable with lots of room. I liked it! Anyways, I got into Huaihua, and dutifully got into line to get a night train to Guiyang - it ended up taking about an hour standing in line, and I got extremely angry at one person who tried to cut in line (many Chinese have no shame about cutting in line - it is something that really ticks me off - especially when you have been waiting in line for 40 minutes, and have barely moved because so many people are cutting in line). I made some mean remarks about how this person lacked basic suzhi (quality of character), but I hadn't eaten lunch or drank any water for a really long time, and it was hot and I'd been standing in line forever, and so this person found themselves the victim of the angry foreigner at the end of their patience.
Eventually, I got the night train ticket to Guiyang - success at last! The price - 120 yuan for a sleeper! Excellent. So I got a night ticket for slightly less than it would have cost me to take a day bus from Jiangkou (total: 120+8+15 = 143 vs. 154). I am an expert Chinese traveller.
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I'm confused.
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