After my trip to Hunan with my brother, we picked up Mireille (my sister in law), Nancy (a friend of ours) and Monah (my one-year-old niece) from the airport in Shanghai. From there on, we visited the beautiful west lake in Hangzhou, took a bus to Nanjing and then again a bus to Huangshan, aka Yellow Mountain.
Our day started in the very early morning, when we had to take the 7AM bus to Tunxi, a little town an hour away from the Mountain range itself. Because our driver was getting calls and picking up people along the way, our 5 hour bus ride turned out to be a 6 hour ride, but hey…we got there. From the busstation in Tunxi, we took a cab to our hostel, which was perfectly located on the ‘Old Street’. Off course, ‘old’ in china, rarely ever means ‘old’. Those kind of streets usually consist of souvenir shop after souvenir shop selling you tea, scarves, silk, games and a lot of other weird Chinese stuff.

The entire Huangshan area is known for its tea. So off course, we had to take a look at the Tea Market, located just a few minutes away from the center.  The Chinese love their tea! They carry around thermos flasks, filled with leaves of their favorite kind of tea, add some hot water and vwallah! And because most of the Chinese have the habit of also drinking hot water, it is available everywhere, for free! Souvenirshops, restaurants, hotel rooms have water boilers, and yes, even on the bus, it’s offered anywhere ! I love it 🙂

We got to the tea market by nightfall. Most of the stores looked the same, and offered the same products, so it was very hard to decide where we were going to buy our supplies. We decided on the store of an elderly lady, who immediately offered us to sit down and have a taste. We tried Keemun Black Tea, Monkey King, Jasmine, Chrysanthemum and the local specialty: Huangshan Maofeng, which kind of tastes like green tea. Off course, the entire concept of tea drinking wouldn’t be that famous, if it weren’t for the rituals that precede it. Teacups are cleansed, tea leaves are washed before use, hot water is poured over the teapot and for some kind of tea they even have special cups. It’s fascinating to watch. During the entire ‘tasting’, the old lady and her family offered us chips, ‘tea-cookies’ and even some rice for my little niece. We ended up with 3 kinds of tea: Black tea, Monkey King and Huangshan Maofeng. My brother even got a little thermos, just like all the other Chinese people 🙂

The next day, we visited Xidi, which is on the Unesco World Heritage list, and is about a one hour drive away from Tunxi. Our mini bus stopped along the road, we got off and were immediately escorted to the ticket office of the old town. We had to pay 260RMB for the 3 of us (100RMB per person, and 60 with a student card), which seemed a hell of a lot of money to me. But, it’s so worth it!

The town is definitely not like all the other ‘old towns’ I have seen before, because it’s actually old. The entire village is a maze of cobbled alleyways, white/grey walls which look like they will fall apart as you walk by, decorated rooftops and round doorways. It really feels as if all of a sudden, you’re part of a Zhang Yimou movie. It’s awesome! We spent the entire afternoon walking around, getting lost in the web of small lanes and taking so much photos. We were not the only ones admiring the scenery. Loads of art students sat there for hours, trying to get the right image on paper.

After a good night rest, we were ready to ‘climb’ Yellow Mountain. The views were truly amazing! From the upper cable way station, we walked for about two hours. The walk was pretty hard. It’s all stairs, going straight up! Occasionally, we would pass some carriers, carrying immense loads of soda, food and souvenirs. Even though they do this trip a few times a day, it’s still pretty tough, and I had loads of respect for them.

 The next day, the weather had completely changed from clear blue skies and sun to nothing else but mist, and because it was Saturday already, we were surrounded by Chinese tourists and their megaphone-carrying guide. That really ruined it for me. You’re walking on this amazing path, in between huge mountains, everything is serene, quiet…until a loud voice breaks that silence and packs of Chinese tourists start to laugh or spit, or start staring and pointing at you!

By then, our journey had reached its endpoint. The next day, we took a bus to Shanghai, where we did some last minute souvenir shopping, visited the Yu Gardens and the old quarter. 3 weeks had passed and it was, again, an awesome trip with great company!

If you want to see some amazing pics of our trip, you can visit my brother’s flickr website: http://www.flickr.com/photos/burwaco/

Stay Tuned for More.