An Adventure just outside Hangzhou

An Adventure just outside Hangzhou
By John Mckenna www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

Day 1, Nov. 4th
Two of us went exploring over towards Hangzhou where we had heard about some impressive sites, that only the Chinese get to see, as the infrastructure is not yet set up for Western tourists.

White Horse Cliff, Lao Dui Xi (a great walk though a canyon and along the river), and Da Ming Mountain; this mountain is said to be as good as Huangshan (Yellow Mountain).

Let’s go and find out.

We took the early train, to Hangzhou. (6:30am, and it is the first fast train, arriving around 8:15am.) We arrived at the Hangzhou East Railway Station just as it started to rain.

The Hangzhou East railway station is very old and run down and a bit out of town, not like the main Station, which is very new and modern. As we were unsure of our plans for the next three days and getting train tickets can be difficult, we decided to buy our return tickets for the Sunday.

After buying our tickets back to Shanghai for the Sunday (6-30pm), we headed off to find a taxi, as we needed to get across town to the Hangzhou West Bus station. Hangzhou has a population of over 3 million, so it’s not a small place, and the lake is not the only main amazing attraction…as we were soon to find out.

It took us 45 minutes to get across town and then from the Hangzhou West Bus Station, we took the 9-50 bus to Chang Hua (cost RMB 20).

The bus is comfortable and we got a seat number, so we had a 2.5 hour ride in the heavy rain and muddy roads to get to a small town called Chang Hua.

There are two main towns that feed all the mountain sight-seeing spots in the Zhe Jiang province; one is Lin’an which we had just driven through, and the other is Chang Hua.

Lin’an is the bigger of the two and about 35 km (45 minutes) east of Hangzhou, on the Yellow Mountain side of Hangzhou. There are 3 main tourist areas with Lin’an being the central feeder to them all.

There is Jin Cheng (east side, Down Town), Tian Mu Mountain (in the middle) and Qing Liang Feng (west side); all are around and within 2 to 3 hrs from Hangzhou.

Lin’an is very well set up to get bus tours, etc, out to the mountain sight-seeing places. Here there are plenty of Chinese 2 and 3 star hotels ranging from RMB 60 to 300 per night, which are a bit more expensive over weekends. I asked around, and these areas get NO Western tourists - all Chinese, as these areas are very difficult for the Western traveller to get to. All foreigners go to the more easily reached Huangshan (Yellow Mountain).

In the Lin’an area, it’s all Chinese language, hotels, cafes, transportation out to the sites, sorry, NO English at all.

This whole area is much cheaper than Yellow Mountain and in my view, just as good … as you will soon find out.

Chang Hua is a very small country village and has a 500-year history of having the best roasted Chestnuts in the land; its bus station is a main feeder to all the mountain sites around this area.

Oh yes, it also has a classic Chinese toilet at the bus station, Take a deep breath. (Or don’t!)

At Chang Hua we boarded another bus (RMB 6) and headed for Tai Ping Qiao which is a very small mountain village close to the places we wanted to see.

The weather had started to clear and we were in for a great sunny afternoon.

When we arrived at Tai Ping Qiao, we were met by the hotel boss who took us to our room. The whole town has about 6, 5-floor low budget hotels and that is about all. This is the off-season, so we were the only tourists in the whole town and being a foreigner certainly made for funny looks in my direction; remember no foreigners come to these sites.

The room was as expected for RMB 60 per night. What was a surprise was a new hot water heater on the wall - at least we could have a nice hot shower. A point to remember, a RMB 60 per night room does not come with towel, so take your own… Hehehe.

We were starving by this time with all the travelling to get here. With only two proper restaurants in town, and both empty at lunchtime it was not a good sign… we went into one and the lady there had to phone the chef to come to work, another bad sign…. we left.

We ended up in a noodle place (the only one) across the road from our hotel. Here we had four local dishes including great dumplings and noodles. Our lunch cost us RMB 16 for two persons… nice.

Now, with a bright sunny day and being well fed, it was time for us to do what we had come here to do…see the sights.
As the tourist sites are still a good distance from the small town, we asked the hotel boss to take us to the furthest site up the mountain road and we would walk back. This cost us RMB 20. He took us to the first site called White Horse Cliff (Bai Ma Ya) where the entrance fee here is RMB 60, which also includes another sight-seeing place called Lao Dui Xi, just down the road.

We could choose to buy a 4-site ticket that includes all the sites for this area and this would cost RMB 110. However if visitors do not arrive early enough there would not be enough time to fit them all in.

The 4 sites are called Tuo Lin Waterfall (Tuo Lin Po Bu), White Horse Cliff, Lao Dui Xi, and Jian Men Guan.

If you have time to do just two sites you need to buy the tickets in this order, or you will be overcharged.

White Horse Cliff + Lao Dui Xi - both for RMB 60.

White Horse Cliff + Sword Gate - both for RMB 60.

If you start with either Lao Dui Xi or Sword Gate, you will be sold a ticket for RMB 60 for just one site.

White Horse Cliff

This place is really beautiful; it has a well made stone path walkway through the forest and valleys, with water pools, waterfalls, amazing rock formations, great views of lush valleys… all along the way. This walk takes about 2 hrs at a stroll.

We had chosen the best time of the year to go on this mountain trip as the whole place was alive with autumn colours.

As it was a Friday, we were the only people in the entire scenic spot. WOW. Nobody…no crowds, lots of peace and quiet, waterfalls, fresh mountain air…just great.

Well worth all the train and bus rides to get here.

It’s quite a climb in some places with many steps (many Chinese mountain sites seem to have a lot of steps), so visitors need to just take it slow and pace themselves.

Good for the legs and butt…my Mum always used to say.

There is a lady at the top-most point who has a shop there. She climbs up everyday summer and winter, and in the winter on some days when no-one comes, she earns nothing for the week. However she still does it; she is a tough lady dedicated to her business. This is typical of how hard some of the country folk have to work to make a living.

White Horse Cliff is a great walk and well worth the visit; however, in the summer I imagine it would be very crowded and very hot.

This place gets busy from May through to the October holiday, after which the tourist traffic falls away and over the winter months only the hardened day-trippers from Shanghai or Hangzhou come here during the weekends.

Lao Dui Xi

From White Horse Cliff you can then walk down the road to Lao Dui Xi, which was a complete surprise. Here were Minority dancing displays, working models of ancient grinding and mill-type tools for making different types of local oils, and a great teahouse overlooking the river. And open spaces for kids to run and play…all very well done.

Again, we were the only ones there, as it was a Friday.

Once you have enjoyed the main areas and sites, there is a walkway alongside the river. It is a good path that takes about an hour and brings you back to the road further down the mountain.

It is really a nice walk with high cliff-sides, big rock formations, autumn colours, and peace and quiet. Remember it’s a Friday, so the next day there will be many, many people here.

By the time we arrived back on the road it was nearly dark, but we knew where the hotel was, so we just walked back.

We got back in total darkness with the hotel boss thinking these two silly city tourists had got lost. She was quite worried for us.

We went straight to dinner and decided to try the restaurant that had a chef. On the menu was peacock, Snake, Wild Boar and Rabbit, Mountain Turtle, Wild Chicken, Donkey…quite an interesting menu with prices at Shanghai levels. In the summer tourist season the prices must be very high. We bargained and ended having a local stonefish dish, egg fried rice with mushroom and a local dish bamboo root / vegetable and bacon soup, total RMB 45. It was ok.

This is a real small country village and when it gets dark, well that is it. nothing to do except go to bed.

So we did as the locals do and retired to bed as well, a long day but a great day, well worth the effort to get up here.

The trip actually lasted 3 days , traveling to some great, sites, please stay with the site and i will post the others over the next few days.

Happy Travelling

John
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com