We got up at around four o'clock in the morning in order to catch our tour bus, which we found, of course, a block away and on the other side of the street of where we were told it would be. The bus broke after half an hour, and we were picked up by a smaller bus. After five more hours we got to Zhaixi, a town that resides at the foot of Huangshan. The people of Zhaixi are extraordinary in the art of trafficking tourists and collecting micro-payments from them: we were taken off the bus in front of a restaurant/convenient store, where we were told by an impressive young lady to buy yellow raincoats, because, well, it rains up there in the mountain. Everybody bought raincoats and many also bought a 3-Yuan (about half a buck) walking cane. We just got the raincoats. When I buy a cane, it’s going to be a fancy, hand-carved one.
The bus left and a swarm of minivans showed up, picking up four people each, to take us to our hotels. After being dropped off, we were told by our driver that we have the afternoon off, so we could either chill, or he can take us to some nearby attractions. We decided to go.
It’s important to note that the micro-payments collected are usually fair - the driver took money for tickets and an additional 30 Yuan, about $5, to himself.
After lunch the driver picked us and two other ladies up and dropped us off at Emerald Valley. He gave us our tickets, told us to meet him back at the same spot in an hour and a half, and left to traffic more tourists.
Emerald Valley is pretty much a long walk along a river. It’s very pretty, and supposedly very romantic, with a big rock at the middle of the valley on which the word “Ai” (Chinese for “love”) is carved and painted red.
I started to develop special interest in documenting the ancient Chinese art of picture posing.
After an hour an and a half, the driver took us to Nine Dragons Falls, and gave us another hour and a half to walk around. Nine Dragons Falls is a much prettier, intricate network of rivers, valleys and waterfalls, and had we known better, we’d prefer spending three hours there. Also, it turns out that some scenes from “Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger” were shot here.
We were extremely tired after all these walking, so we got back to the hotel to take a nap, then wandered around the town to find some food. All of the restaurants seemed empty, and when we finally took a seat in one that had people in it, they all turned out to be members of the family that run the place. We had our dinner as we watched them play cards, and got back to the hotel to get some sleep - tomorrow we need to be up before dawn again. We have a yellow mountain to climb.
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