I took my first trip to China this year to speak at the 4th Asia-Pacific Protein Conference, which was held in Shanghai. In usual style, I also took the opportunity to spend a few days exploring, with Wayne Patrick – a friend and collaborator from Massey University in NZ – who hatched a cunning plan. After the 4 days in Shanghai for the meeting, we headed off on an overnight train to Mt Huangshan – reputed to be one of the most impressive (and also most visited…) mountains in China. We considered other destinations further afield (Mt Huangshan is only a few hundred km from Shanghai) to try to increase the remoteness factor, but we only had 4 days, so opted in the end for the closer choice…

For the time-poor, there are a small selection of snaps from the trip below. For the procrastinators, there are a few pages that allow you to explore our trip in more detail…

Shanghai was a pretty interesting place to visit. Flying over on the way in, I could see that it was incredibly flat and there was a huge network of canals in some parts of the city that were laid out pretty much like roads – presumably used for transport of produce and other goods.

The city centre was a bastion of European designer shops – more Gucci, Tag Heuer etc shops than I have seen anywhere in one place – and these were shops selling the real thing – there were also plenty of friendly locals offering to sell me watches, ipods and so on on the street – it is possible that these ones weren’t quite so genuine… Juliet Gerrard took advantage of one of these chaps (not literally) to secure herself a watch (and a story to tell) for $5 or so after extensive bargaining…

The other amazing thing about the city was the rate of construction. Apparently all the buildings on the eastern side of the river (see night shot above and shot from the observation tower) have been built in the last 15 or so years – an incredible rate of construction. They say Asia ran out of cranes for a while 10 years ago, and I believe it!

We attended our conference, which was good overall – some good talks from people I didn’t know, and got to catch up with Art Palmer – literally, as he is running very well at the moment… Was also good to see Juliet Gerrard and to chat with Mike Ryan and Ray Norton. Once ti was all over, Wayne and I got ourselves organized for the next leg of the trip…

9 May
We left a few bits and pieces at the hotel in Shanghai (well, Wayne left an entire suitcase, and i left my laptop – i had taken the “hand luggage only” option on this flight, so was running on bare minimum – it was a “wash the undies and socks every night” story…) and caught an overnight train to Huangshan, about 500 km away. We shared a 4-berth sleeper compartment with a retired English couple. It was all just dandy – there is boiling water available for making your instant noodles and the beds were perfectly comfortable.

10 May
We arrived in Huangshan first thing in the morning and were immediately nailed by Jane (Song Xiang Yang – email)- a chinese taxi driver who spoke pretty good English – more than good enough to convince us to be driven to base of the mountain instead of taking the cheaper bus – we’re pushovers! It was 160 yuan (AUD25) for the two of us for a one-hour ride, so hard to complain really. Talking to her, we rearranged our plan so that we spent one less night on the mountain (two instead of three nights). We lost our deposit for the hotel we had booked, but it was still cheaper getting a hotel at the bottom in Tungkou (especially when Jane arranged it for us!) than paying the rest of the price up the mountain! We also arranged for Jane to pick us up the morning after we got back down the mountain for a day of touring old villages before we get the train – 400 yuan (~AUD70) for her to drive the two of us around for the whole day. Seemed ok to us greenhorns!

Spent form 9 am to 4 pmwalking up from the SE entrance – Ku Zhu Xi – the path less travelled according to Jane – and it was! We saw only a few people the whole way up, mostly guys running down the hill with bags of laundry from the hotels over their shoulders supported by a bamboo pole. Also some guys with sedan chairs who would give you a ride up – the enormous hill! At the top, we walked around and saw several very impressive granite pillars jutting skywards.

Stayed at the Beihai hotel – the room was just fine, despite some bad online reports. The food was ok but not brill. Had the tofu dish but discovered chunks of pork in it – still with the hair on! Definitely not Monica-friendly tofu! Then got an early night to try to catch the cloudy sea the next morning…

11 May
We got up at the crack of dawn to see the famous cloudy sea this morning, expecting the apparently customary 1-2000 people there with us. However, drizzle seemed to keep them in bed, and there was basically just us and a pair of people in yellow hotel raincoats. Despite the drizzle, we still got some cool views of peaks poking out through the cloud cover – well worth the early start…

We spent the day doing loops to the Grand Canyon on the western part of the summit and dealing with Wayne’s obsession with tentacle pron. There is supposed to be a big loop path, but it was partially closed because of track construction works, so we had to do two big out-and-backs. The great thing about that was that the track closure had put everyone else off, so there was basically just us and a very small number of other people out there – the hordes stayed in the central and eastern part of the summit area – bonus (given that many of the tour groups enjoyed nothing more than playing music on their mobile phones (without headphones…)!

Views were substantially obscured by there being quite a bit of mist, but there was just enough visibility to get a little bit of a feeling of the amazing-ness of the area. Then when we got around to the Fairy Bridge in the south, we hit the jackpot. This was perhaps the most amazing thing i have ever seen anywhere. If you go to China, you have to see this!

By that point, it was getting late so we hotfooted it down the mountain – weather was just starting to clear, so got a couple of looks at what it must all be like when clear – amazing!
We got to the bus stop at the bottom when it was getting pretty dark and in fog. Because it was so late though, there was no bus back to Tungkou. However, a taxi driver appeared out of the mist and took us to the door of the hotel for 40 yuan – a pretty good deal! We ate across the road from the hotel after being nailed by woman spruiking for her restaurant (who somehow spotted that we weren’t locals). Was great food – whole little fish, tofu and mini eggplant with beer for 100 yuan.

Went to bed ready for a day of touring with Jane tomorrow…

12 May
Jane picked us up at 9 am. After some discussion of options, we settled on seeing the preserved/restored village of Hongcun, a bamboo forest, a touch of white water rafting and some fine tea tasting. The bamboo forest was a pleasant stroll – until we came to the flying fox chair thing out of the blue, which gave us a quick ride across the valley for a paltry 40 yuan. A hoot. Hongcun was interesting – some preserved buildings from 4-500 y ago – all wooden, including an amazing BandB with beautiful ancient carved beds and flash bathrooms in a 450y old building [see reviews]. We were invited in for a look around by the owner who had lived briefly in Hamilton, curiously enough – didn’t know Vic though (how on earth not?)… Had lunch with great simple food at the cafe of a friend of Jane’s and then went rafting. Instruction was very limited (and in Chinese!) and the door was shut behind us after grabbing a paddle and a jacket and then we were on the river. Was fairly tame but still quite fun. Part of the excitement was having no idea at all what lay around the next bend…

Then we headed back to Huangshan city (a small Chinese city at 1.5M and growing…). where we went to a very flash tea shop where we tasted (and purchased) some tea, and bought some before a last walk down the old st of Huangshan. Jane showed us a fab place for dinner with a zillion choices, all displayed on a bar with the chefs cooking behind – making dumplings etc. Had a great final dinner with Jane- then onto the train, where we chatted with a Chinese woman who was an optician in Cambridge and was here for her annual Tai-chi retreat!

Throughout our trip Jane [email her] was incredibly helpful – if you are ever in the Huangshan area, we would both thoroughly recommend her as a tour guide, taxi driver, someone to book things for you and generally very nice person to chat to…!

12 May
Jane picked us up at 9 am. After some discussion of options, we settled on seeing the preserved/restored village of Hongcun, a bamboo forest, a touch of white water rafting and some fine tea tasting. The bamboo forest was a pleasant stroll – until we came to the flying fox chair thing out of the blue, which gave us a quick ride across the valley for a paltry 40 yuan. A hoot. Hongcun was interesting – some preserved buildings from 4-500 y ago – all wooden, including an amazing BandB with beautiful ancient carved beds and flash bathrooms in a 450y old building [see reviews]. We were invited in for a look around by the owner who had lived briefly in Hamilton, curiously enough – didn’t know Vic though (how on earth not?)… Had lunch with great simple food at the cafe of a friend of Jane’s and then went rafting. Instruction was very limited (and in Chinese!) and the door was shut behind us after grabbing a paddle and a jacket and then we were on the river. Was fairly tame but still quite fun. Part of the excitement was having no idea at all what lay around the next bend…

Then we headed back to Huangshan city (a small Chinese city at 1.5M and growing…). where we went to a very flash tea shop where we tasted (and purchased) some tea, and bought some before a last walk down the old st of Huangshan. Jane showed us a fab place for dinner with a zillion choices, all displayed on a bar with the chefs cooking behind – making dumplings etc. Had a great final dinner with Jane- then onto the train, where we chatted with a Chinese woman who was an optician in Cambridge and was here for her annual Tai-chi retreat!

Throughout our trip Jane [email her] was incredibly helpful – if you are ever in the Huangshan area, we would both thoroughly recommend her as a tour guide, taxi driver, someone to book things for you and generally very nice person to chat to…!

13 May
We got back to Shanghai without and dramas, picked up our stuff at the Hilton, had a shower there (don’t ask how much *that* cost), breakfast and then it was time for Wayne to head to the airport (via the ultra-speedy Maglev train). I hung around for the day (flight not till later) and visited a few of the things we hadn’t had a chance to see first time round. Wandered around the old city – lots of tourist shops (many of which were quite interesting with craftsmen making interesting things) and some nice preserved buildings, then went over to the Science museum, which had some interesting stuff – as well as some weird stuff (it seems to have become a habit of mine to visit Science museums abroad now…have seen the ones in Tokyo, Goteborg and Shanghai in the last year!). Then it was off to the airport.

All in all, a great trip – I definitely far far prefer travelling with someone else rather than by myself. Always makes for more amusement…