A week of travel and adventure

After a week of BJ and Olympic madness me and Giovanna decided to travel off to the province of Anhui to climb Huangshan and meet up with her little brother Feng and his gf. We took a plane to Nanjing and from there we took a bus to Tunxi. Or so we thought, apparently we took the bus to Tangkou instead. We cabbed the way from Tangkou to Tunxi and met up with Feng and Wai Ah at the Koala Hostel in Lao jie in Tunxi.

We spent Thursday at Yixian were we walked around and saw the old part next to the river and took a short boat ride.

Friday we got up early and went of to climb the eastern steps of Huangshan. We started our climb at the eastern steps around 9am ish and we were at the summit around 4pm ish. The climb up was pretty easy and we could enjoy the scenery even though it was a bit cloudy at some times. But we also had a fair share of sunshine. That is, until we got to the summit. It started raining cats & dogs. Or as Kevin would say: “We got pissed on”. So we went to find a hotel to spend the night. Let me say one thing, hotels on Huangshan are bloody expensive!!! We stayed at and the price of a standard room with 2 single beds was 1080rmb, we got a discount but it was still 950rmb. We just booked one room and stayed in it with 4. Man, I could do a weekend trip with the money I spent for one night.

Anyway, the next day we got up at 4am to catch the sunrise on top of the mountain. Well, the only thing is that it was so cloudy and rainy that we could not see the sunrise. The only thing we noticed was that is was getting lighter. While we missed the sunrise we did manage to capture the sea of clouds covering the mountain. Which was an awesome sight, well for me at least. It stayed cloudy and rainy the rest of the day so we barely got to see anything during our climb down the western steps. So we decided to take the cable car down and head back to Koala Hostel.

Sunday we went to see 2 old villages which are also Unesco Heritage sites. Yeah baby, two more Unesco sites done in China. 😉 The villages we went to are Hongcun and Xidi. Apparently a few scenes of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon were filmed in Hongcun, mostly in the beginning of the movie. So when I get back home I’m going to rewatch the movie. After visiting Hongcun and admiring the scenery we went to Xidi to walk around and admire the architecture.

On Monday we were planning to leave Tunxi and split up. Me going back to BJ to relax the last few days before flying back to NL from BJ and the others to Shanghai to spend some days there before they fly back to NL from SH. Well that was the plan before something happened that made us change plans.

We were in a minibus on the way to the bus station in Tunxi when we got into a car accident. The minibus we were in crashed into a truck. Thank god the crash happened as it did. Otherwise my injuries would have been more severe. I was sitting next to the driver when we crashed into the truck, thank god the others where in the back and only have some bruises and a few scrapes. Me, my left leg was luckily not broken, just bruises and scrapes. Which hurt like hell after the crash. My right leg was worse, at the hospital they had to put it in cast so I would not worsen my injury on my knee more. But since it was a local hospital with no English speaking staff we did not understand what was wrong with my knee. Even with the help of the manager of Koala doing translating we couldn’t.

After we were done at the hospital we went back to Koala and stayed there to rest and calm down after a very hectic and scary morning.

I want to thank the manager of Koala Hostel for all the help and support during the hospital and afterwards. Also the friendly and helpful staff I want to thank from the bottom of my heart. I most definitely recommend Koala Hostel at Tunxi, Lao jie to everyone that is planning to climb Huang shan. And the restaurant across from Koala for very good and delicious food.

On Tuesday Feng and Wai Ah went to SH by bus and me and Giovanna went to BJ by plane from Tunxi.

Wednesday and Thursday were slow, non eventful days in BJ. We met up with Pamela, Wijie, Zhiying, Sieds, Steven & Hana. Because of the accident I could meet up with Kevin, since he flew off to HK on Wednesday morning and I arrived Tuesday midnight in BJ. We just chillaxed and rested basically. Hmm, wait that’s not correct. Wednesday I had a medical check up at an international hospital with native English speaking doctors. I got to hear that my knee cap and bones were not broken but bruised and that there was something with my legamines. And that everything is going to be fine. The doc showed me how to treat the wound on my knee and gave me other medication. When I get back in NL I’ll just go to my doctor or hospital for further check up. On Thursday we went to The Lion King one lat time to Kala OK.

Which leads this blogpost to Friday. Pamela left earlier on the day (8am) to the airport to fly off to Dusseldorf. Wijie left with her so she wouldn’t have to go alone and me and Giovanna left a few hours later (10:45am). Giovanna helped me check in at terminal 2 and then went to terminal 3 to check in for her flight to SH.

It’s currently 4:30pm NL time and I’m finishing this post while flying somewhere near Finland I think. Started writing when I was over Moscow, so it took quite a while to type this on my pda. I should be landing around 6:30pm NL time on Schiphol airport. So that means that I have 2 more hours to go. I’ll probably try to catch a power nap in those 2 hours. Can’t wait to be back home again and get some rest and sleep in my own comfy bed.