Huangshan to Hong Kong

The passport official at Hung Hom (the Hong Kong train station) looks at my passport with a bemused expression. "Is this you?" he questions, pointing at my passport photo.

What does he expect me to say? No? Granted, the photo would never pass today's strict passport photo standards since most of my face is covered by my tragic hairstyle of 2002, but still, the passport has since got me around the world without a second glance until this guy asks me whether the photo is in fact, me. I answer "Yes," with what I hope is an innocent smile and my word seems to be all the confirmation he requires.

I am - as you may have gathered - now in Hong Kong, awaiting my visa which should be ready this evening for the whopping fee of HK$1200 (at 15.4 HK$ to the pound you can work that one out for yourself). Luckily, despite all the current visa fiasco it seems my simple tourist visa should be easy enough to get (fingers crossed etc. etc.), so I think I may even head over to Macau for a day before I meet my flatmate Sam in Shenzhen in China.

Yesterday I spent my afternoon in Hong Kong (apart from getting my visa sorted) wandering through Kowloon park, where they have an aviary full of pretty birds, and walking along the waterfront watching the lazer display show, which incidentally was a bit rubbish. The coordination required was impressive since all the skyscrapers light up in time to music but it just completely fell short of magnificent. I don't know, maybe I'm just spoiled e.g. by the laser display at Futuroscope (remember that one kids? with the white horse charging at you through the sky), but altogether I've seen much more impressive shows on a less grand scale. I'm not the only one either, a German tourist said "Scheize" (or however it's spelt) decisively as soon as it was over.

I was in fact interrupted writing this entry yesterday by the arrival in the internet cafe of Lucie Vickers, a fellow teaching volunteer from Thailand with her friend Fiona, fresh from their adventures in India. Suffice it to say, it was a bit random to bump into her here in HK, so I swore effusively before we went and had a (very expensive) beer in a (not at all) Irish pub.

Today I took the tram up Victoria Peak and eventually found the exit from the shopping centre at the top (everywhere is a shopping centre here). I then walked the 2.8 km circuit around the peak of the hill, partly because I couldn't find the road up to the top (I was clearly not in my best navigating mood) and partly because I thought perhaps my poor legs wouldn't stand the climb after the punishment they received at Huangshan at the weekend. More on that later.

After that I walked through Soho, vainly searching for a Chinese restaurant (they're harder to find here than you might think) and settled for sushi, to which I am now addicted. After that, I took a ferry back across the harbour and went to the art museum and now I'm here, telling you lovely people all about it, wondering if Lucie and Fiona will randomly walk in to the internet cafe again.

Unconventionally I've told you about the most recent events first instead of the least recent, i.e. my experiences up a Chinese mountain. Well here goes - the Huangshan epic.

Last Friday, 6 of us - Lily, Sam, Elaine, Aneesa and Alina and myself - boarded the night train from Shanghai to Huangshan, which rather accurately translates as the Yellow Mountains, a place consistently listed in top tens of what to visit in China. We were all full of promise, and the spirit of adventure - the trip certainly did not disappoint on that score. At Suzhou, we were joined by two volunteers from there (Natalie and Harriet) and the night passed uneventfully, except that the swaying I experienced at the top of a triple bunk bed (incidentally uncomfortably close to the air conditioning) did make it feel rather more like a trip on a ferry than a train journey.

From the train station we caught a bus and when this was pulling into Tangkou (the town at the bottom of the mountain), a man named Mr Cheng introduced himself to us as a local restaurant owner and purveyor of tourist advice, and informed us that the hostel I had booked for us online no longer existed. We all traipsed to the hostel that was supposed to be its replacement only to find they had no record of my booking (so I'm currently hoping the money won't just quietly disappear from my account).

Mr Cheng, who turned out to be a bit of a legend as well as a damn fine cook, made us lunch and booked us an 8 bed dorm at the top of the mountain with no shower. Lily and I had tried to book somewhere at the top of the mountain the previous weekend only to discover that everywhere we tried was full, except suites that cost 1000 RMB a night (at 13.4 to the pound) between two people. So, it seemed everything was working out for the best. Who really needs to shower every day anyway, or even once over an entire weekend, when you're climbing a mountain... At least we would all smell together.

We set off and walked an extra section via a waterfall on the way to the foot of the mountain. All of us girls (with me as usual lagging behind) were way too tired by the time we got to the eastern steps of the mountain to climb for another 2 and a half hours up, so Sam went up by himself and basically made it up by the time we did, and we were on a cable car. It turned out to be a good thing that we were lazy, because it began to absolutely bucket it down and even looking for the hotel at the top for 20 or so minutes left us all completely soaked through. The dorm minus shower was starting to look less and less appealing. On the bright side, however, the rain did provide us with an opportunity for some beautiful pictures of us all in our rain macs.

Since everything has to be carried up the mountain, and also just because they can, food and drink prices are very high up there, so Elaine, Aneesa and I, dined on a fine selection of pringle-substitutes, instant noodles and oreos, followed by coffee in one of the hotels. I asked the waitress where the toilet was - in English since my Mandarin education unhelpfully didn't include the word for toilet - but she just looked blank. I mimed washing my hands, and Aneesa, seeing the blank stares continued, made a sound that crossed language barriers and indicated that I really needed a wee, much to everybody's amusement. I found the toilets after that and (not to be underappreciated in Asia) the disabled toilet was an actual proper toilet, not a squat one. Only later did it occur to me that it was quite ironic to have a disabled toilet at the top of the mountain, especially since you had to climb a step to get into the rather small cubicle. Perhaps we westerners are deemed disabled by Chinese hotel owners due to our inability to use squat toilets.

We then climbed up the extra dark, windy staircase to our dorm room, which smelled strange, especially after we had sat and steamed in it a while. In the morning those of us who had managed to get any sleep were awoken abruptly by hordes of Chinese people getting up at 3.30 am to be in plenty of time for sunrise. We followed them, and while most of my friends found a place on a large wide rock that served as a viewing platform, I couldn't see from there and so walked a little further up the hill.

There I found a rock all to myself with a splendid view across the valley and it was incredibly peaceful and calm in that eerie pre-dawn light for all of five minutes before the hordes of Chinese people followed me and set up camp at my feet and on various nearby rocks.

The Huangshan sunrise has got to count as the funniest (and least meditative) sunrise I have ever seen, and served as an excellent lesson in cultural differences. Any sunrise witnessed by purely English people is done so in silence, with any necessary conversation conducted in a kind of reverend whisper. Not so in China. Conversation was loud and almost raucous and increased in volume until the sun managed to peak above the bank of clouds at the horizon whereupon several people actually cheered and clapped as if to say "well done". They then took 3 or 4 photos and disappeared immediately, because obviously the show was now over. I had to suppress giggles through the whole thing.

We then sat around waiting for toast that was on a menu but never actually materialised (presumably because someone had neglected to carry bread up the mountain the day before), before setting off at about 7.30 am to climb down the mountain. We accidentally got split into 2 groups and most people went down the shorter route (again accidentally) while Lily, Sam and myself tackled the western steps. It was magnificent, but physically very challenging, especially since my legs (not yet painful) simply ceased to work properly half way down and I started to walk like some sort of badly put together robot.

This was all fine (although once again I did lag behind a little) until it decided to rain again with a vengeance, resoaking my just about dry trainers (which are still damp today). At one point we took shelter under a tarpaulin over a little shop, and when the rain failed to abate after a few minutes went to look down the next set of steps.

It was at this point that I ceased to cope. The water was coming down in ridiculous quantities meaning we had to wade along the path, and the steps had turned into a vicious looking waterfall. Sam decided to go ahead anyway (being an adventurous sort) and Lily kindly stayed behind with me until the rain stopped, which was luckily not that long after.

We made it to Mr Cheng's restaurant by 1.30pm and then spent the rest of the day annoying him by hanging around there (although he did manage to offload some of us to a random person's swimming pool nearby), until we left for another night train journey in the evening. The whole weekend was generally rather exhausting but on the whole rather fun. I'll bore you all with pictures when I get back.