Yellow Mountain (Huangshan) Day 1
Trip Start
Unknown
1
7
24
Trip End
Ongoing
Huangshan, Anhui, China
Monday, September 20, 2010
Because my Mandarin wasn't all that good, my family had little faith that I could actually make it around China on my own so I was forced into a tour group to see Yellow Mountain. Not just any tour group though, a Chinese speaking tour group that my Aunt booked for me. I told her that there was no way I was going on a Chinese speaking tour without a translator, so at the recommendation of one the teachers at my Uncle's school, Dorothy, a very nice 21 year old girl joined me on my 3 day trip to the Mountains.
Actually, I would have loved to spend 3 days in the Mountains but realistically, the "3 days" were actually filled with 2 days of rather pointless sightseeing and tourist traps trying to get you to spend more money at their commissioned partners businesses on the Mountain.
The first day of the tour was the worst as we had to change buses about 3 times before our first stop at the Mysterious Grottoes. Actually there wasn't anything mysterious about it at all as you could clearly see manmade diggings of the walls and piles of concrete and rocks where they placed the diggings. The best part had to be the neon colored lights they lit the walls with as an attempt to make the grottoes seem more interesting.
Next stop was Lover's Valley which pretty much consisted of a pathway that led to nowhere, alongside a river up a valley. There were a couple of small waterfalls along the way with some semi-interesting landscapes but for the most part, it wasn't worth the 70RMB entry fee. Oh and the acrobat flying on a rope over the river, to techno music might I add, was probably the most random thing I saw in all of China.
