Huangshan, Anhui, China
Thursday, December 31, 2009
Philip and I started our hike up
Huangshan (黄山) at about 5pm after serious negotiations with women who ran a hotel in the village around the mountain. She started out by saying that there were no vacancies on the mountain, then after about 30 minutes of telling her that we were not going to stay at her hotel, she finally relented and found us a door room on the summit. So we started the hike, it was supposed to be a 4 hour hike. We either set some sort of record or that was also a lie. We got to the top in under 2 hours and were at the hotel in 2 hours and 20 minutes. It was a beautiful night to hike, clear skies and a huge full moon. The New Years' celebration was very low key, the hotel was basically full, but they closed the bar and so Philip and played cards in the lobby till the new year. We got up in the morning and went to the highest points to watch the first sunrise of the new year. It was really beautiful, too many people but... really couldn't complain. The hike down took a lot longer, it was much more up and down but the views were stunning.
