An Adventure just outside Hangzhou - Day 2

The Continued Adventure in the Mountains just outside of Hangzhou
By John Mckenna
www.Travel-the-Real-China.com

The full story and the pictures can be seen on Travel-Hangzhou-China

Day 2, Nov. 5th

We were up bright and early after a great nights sleep; we’re not used to the quiet, and it was good to hear a truck roar through town at 3am. Hehehe.

Then it was off to the best place in town (the only place in town) for some breakfast. We got there about 8-15 and found the buns (Rou Bao), soybean juice, pan cakes etc were all sold out before 8AM. WOW - must be good business in the early morning.

We settled for their very good dumplings and local noodles, 2 bowls of each, (we were hungry), total cost RMB 11.

Here we saw a local running around with a snake trying to sell it to the restaurants; don’t you just love these local country places. Hehehe.

We were off to a local mountain called Da Ming Shan, which is a mountain that is compared to Yellow Mountain for views and scenery; however very much cheaper and closer to Shanghai and Hangzhou, being only about 2.5 hrs from Hangzhou.

We decided to take the bus. The hotel boss wanted to drive us there for RMB 80, but we thought the bus would be more fun.

After an hours wait, snacking on local pancakes with the whole town watching us, the bus stormed past us. Luckily for us two seats were available, and we discovered the local area officials are very strict on overloading and will not allow anyone to stand - no-seats and the bus will not stop to pick you up. This is actually is good to know, as when I back-packed 10 years ago, the policy was - pack in as many as you can. It’s a lot safer now.

Half an hour later we were dropped off in a small town called Long Gang (Dragon gate), to catch the next local bus to Ji Xi, which is the junction point to go up to Da Ming Mountain, another 4km up the road.

All the bus rides provide great entertainment from the locals, as getting to this mountain is easy for the Chinese, but very difficult for the Westerner. So this famous Chinese tourist site gets no Western tourist traffic.

The weather had turned into a beautiful hot sunny autumn day, and we had to buy hats; strange weather the Chinese autumn, cold and wet one day, so hot the next that you need a hat.

Da Ming Shan (Mountain)

The entrance fee and the sign are in English, and it says RMB 68. Yes, you get charged this, plus an extra RMB 8, which is not explained in English. It’s the fee for an internal mountain bus ride between the main entrance and the cable car area - (it’s a long walk but not worth doing), so the correct entrance fee to Da Ming Shan is RMB 76.

There is a hotel up beside the cable car station called Da Ming Mountain Villa; the rooms are from RMB160 to 350 per night with different prices for the weekday and the weekend. I checked the lowest cost room as well as the highest cost. Both rooms had small windows, but not really showing off the wonderful views, with the RMB 350 room being newer and cleaner.

From the cable car area you have some decisions to make - take the cable car up the mountain, or walk? The ride up is RMB30, the ride down is RMB25.

Trust me, take the cable car, it’s a LONG walk and there plenty of steps and climbing to do when you up there, so save your energy.

WOW …What a view. We have chosen the best time of year with all the amazing autumn colours around us.

When we arrived at the top and thought, good ride up, now what, we were told to “walk this way” straight into the side of the mountain.

All the scenic sites are linked via 10km of tunnels through the mountain, it’s just amazing. The tunnels are well lit and take you to all the best viewing points around the mountain..

The site description signs are bi-lingual, hanging bridges, spectacular outlooks, restaurants, very clean toilets, all well placed, very impressive. And not one foreigner.

There were many tour groups here from Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou etc, and all the guides said that Da Ming Shan gets no western tourist traffic due to being so hard to get to. If a foreigner comes, it is always with a Chinese tour group.

We spent the rest of the day up there, checking all the sites out, climbing, what I though were thousands and thousands of steps, and ate good hot local noodles overlooking a beautiful mountain meadow.

The hot sunny autumn sunshine, magnificent views, and a well set up scenic site, provided a great day out - well worth the effort in getting here.

Da Ming Shan definitely should be checked out, and in the winter all the mountain peeks will be very spectacular. I will certainly be back over the winter months for more photos.

Oops! I forgot to mention about getting back. It was getting too late for the local buses, so some quick talking was called for. We needed to get back to Lin’an, which is just 35 minutes away from Hangzhou, and find a good cheap hotel.

Fortunately we found a Suzhou tourist group (120 persons) on their way back to Lin’an to stay the night. The tour group leader said he had some spare seats at the back of the bus and we could have them, so we were lucky.

It turned out that the tour group had some people drop out and the hotel where this group was staying had rooms booked that they had to pay for. So we were offered one of the rooms. We were very pleased to get a good hotel room at a tour group price, and it saved the tour operator paying for empty rooms.

We were then invited for dinner with the group leaders and the guides. Over dinner the group manager found out I was in the tourist business and then invited us to go with them to the locations they had planned for tomorrow.

WOW - great stuff. More sites to explore and investigate that foreigners would find difficult to get to, and so close to Hangzhou.

Tomorrow we would be off to a site call Xiao (small) Jiuzhaigou, named after the famous Jiuzhaigou in the Sichuan Province. This should be interesting, and just an hour and a half away from Hangzhou.

After a day of adventures and excitement it was off to bed, with much more to look forward to tomorrow.

I will post the 3rd and last day over the wek few days

Take care

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