Huangshan
Yellow Mountain is beyond a doubt, the move beautiful place I think I've ever seen. Misty craggly limstone peaks with wind-weathered pines jutting out the cracks, it looks like a Chinese painting come to life. At dawn, the sun rises from a sea of clouds viewed from a peak. As entertaining as the natural spectacle is are the audible "Ooo's" and "Ahhh's" from the crowds of gathered Chinese tourists. Two glorious days of hiking around. While here, I again run into a Cantonese-speaking student and we tour the mountainside together. On some of the steeper passes, many porters vye for the opportunity to carry our packs to the top on bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders. I give them approx $5 to carry them up the biggest pass on their rail thin legs. If I wanted I could have been carried up too in a sedan chair hoisted by two porters. But I enjoy the hike and don't want to look silly. Half way up, I'm passed by just such a chair carrying a grotesqely obese Hong Konger, wiping off profuse amounts of sweat from his pudgy brow. The skinny legs of the porters look ready to snap in half. I laugh out loud.
China is without a doubt the noisest country I've ever seen (and still holds true 106 countries later). This and Lushan are about the quietest I've seen, and even here, there are so many local tourists that I seldom have a moment in peace.
