After two days of hiking Mt. Huangshan's unforgiving granite path, our feet needed a good soak. We found a hot springs spa nestled in the misty mountains, next to a Best Western. We were the first ones at the spa at 9am, and had to wait a bit to use all the pools, which the staff were filling with steaming hot spring water. There were about 15 pools, none of which were filled with pure unadulterated spring water. For some medicinal reason that was lost in translation, one of the pools was filled with cheap vodka heated to 40C by the spring water. Others were filled with green tea and flowers, and one with red wine (which smelled like rice wine with food coloring). Our favorites were side-by-side pools, one with milk and the other coffee grounds. We're not talking about Starbucks, or Peet's, or Zingerman's, or even Green Mountain Coffee. This was a tiny pool filled with 15 canisters of Nescafe! We could pop from one pool to the next very easily, but after the coffee pool it was necessary to rinse the grinds away.
One of the VIP pools (30RMB extra) contained a few thousand "kissing fish" which feed on flakes of dead skin. You pay for the privilege of being eaten by hundreds of tiny fish, jockeying for position around your cuticles and heels and toes. One must be diligent about keeping them out of your swimsuit. The feeling is ticklish, not painful.
We lifted this stock photo from the internet. Our spa was much fancier.
Bonus video: on the top of the mountain we both had brutal foot massages. The boys often preferred to beat rather than rub our feet.
On the last day we took a taxi to the notoriously cute village of Hongcun, which has an 80RMB entrance fee. Inside you can see authentic village houses and authentic village people trying to go about their lives, ignoring the hoards of tourists. Our taxi driver waited in the parking lot while we toured the village. (We strongly recommend hiring a driver for the day.)
Before our late flight back to Shanghai we hung out in Tunxi (15 minutes from the airport). Tunxi has a beautiful old shopping street, which is a great place to go if you have hundreds/thousands of dollars to spend on Chinese antiques.
This post is the second installment of our Funny Signs in China series.
Some of the signs aren't all that funny, actually, but we try not to have such high standards.
No public health campaign is really complete without cartoons scaring the kids. This educational cartoon about H1N1 plays on a continuous loop in the airport. ("It comes from America" is one of the fun facts, which we generously interpreted as meaning "The continents of N. and S. America".)
Five miles into our hike up Mt. Huangshan we came upon public toilets that received three stars from the APTA (Anhui Provincial Tourism Administration).
Unfortunately the sign didn't give any details about how these stars are acquired. How many can a toilet get? Is there grade inflation? Are the ratings distorted by bribes? In my imagination I can see the conversation at APTA headquarters...
APTA Deputy: Sir, the study we commissioned found that tourists in Anhui are terribly disappointed in the province's toilet quality.
APTA Chief: How do you propose that we deal with this situation?
APTA Deputy: What about a province-wide mandate, sir? With fines for violators!
APTA Chief: Yes, but we must use both sticks and carrots.
APTA Deputy: What do you mean?
APTA Chief: Let me tell you about the Michelin Guide's stars...
At the top of the mountain next to our shi-shi hotel we found one of the rare four star toilets, which gave us enough data points to extrapolate the system:
1 star: No feces on floors or walls. A door on each stall.
2 stars: Running water
3 stars: No smell of urine. Toilet paper dispensers and soap dispensers (no toilet paper or soap).
4 stars: Full-time bathroom attendant. Evidence that there was, at some time, soap in the soap dispenser.
5 stars: Soap.
This sign should be installed in front of all urinals!
Smoking is strictly forbidden! ...on this side of the line.
In China we have found there is a deliberate ambiguity between massage parlors and "massage parlors."
Here are some mildly amusing signs
BONUS PICTURES:
In our hike through the tea plantations outside Hangzhou we discovered a centuries-old Buddhist cave that was just dark enough to do some extended exposure photography. (Be sure to look at these in full screen mode. The button is in the bottom right corner of the slideshow.)
For your enjoyment, here are three slide shows from our night on Mt. Huang Shan. The Beihai Guesthouse was built during the early days of Mao and felt eerily like the remote hotel from Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining. It even included a Shining-esque group photo featuring a Chinese Jack Nicholson. To our surprise, we stayed in a cabin tucked away behind the basketball courts, not in the hotel proper. (Remember when you view the photos that there are no roads on the mountain. Everything you see was carried in.)
In this Album: Our accommodation at the Beihai hotel. Who can spot the Chinese Jack Nicholson? Our cozy cabin in the woods which would have been peaceful if our neighbors hadn't stayed up late playing the rowdiest game of mahjong this side of the Yangtze. From our front stoop we could see a hotel under construction in the distance.
In this Album: Stone Work: carved lion and steps with granite railings chiseled to look like wood. (Who has the patience to chisel granite?) The hotel's tent option. We suspect that they do not advertise the tents as "conveniently located on the cement basketball court". Misty mountain b-ball. Padlocks bought in tourists shops and attached to chains all over the mountain. We don't know why. Our post-hike dinner.
In this Slide Show: Seth at 5:30am trying to enjoy the sunrise. Just waiting for the inconsiderate American tourists to stop Bogarting our view. Misty mountain beauty.
This weekend we flew to the yellow mountains to discover why people say that once you climb Mt. Huangshan, you never want to climb another mountain again.
It turns out that Mt. Huangshan is the single largest stairmaster in the world, if not the universe. From the moment you pay your 230RMB entrance fee to the moment you check into your 4 star mountain top hotel, there is neither the necessity nor the opportunity to leave the steep granite stairway that stretches 10 miles from bottom to top.
The views from the mountain are truly striking and changing all the time as the mist flows through the slender peaks. We kept the trigger on our camera cocked at all times because the perfect photo could be completely swallowed by mist within seconds. We expected to trade the noise of Shanghai for some peaceful time in nature. Unexpectedly, the mountain stairway was packed so full of people we had to sharpen our elbows to push past the crowds like we were forcing our way out of a Shanghai subway car.
We prepared for the hike by packing a full day's worth of provisions, which turned out to be totally unnecessary, because, at predictable 15 minute intervals we would come upon well stocked stands selling water, beer, hot noodles, frozen popsicles and all the tchotchkes you desire. (It's important to note here that everything, including the full-size freezers are hiked up the steep granite stairway. There are no roads whatsoever.) Whoever designed the mountain path had no illusions about respect for nature in China because they stationed stone trashcans every 30 or 40 feet. Even so, many of the hikers could not wait that long to toss their bottles and used cigarette packs. (Smoking on a mountain hike? Yes! And there's even engraved "Smoke Here" signs on the walkways.)
The mountain is shockingly developed. We were surprised that all the food stations are equipped with TVs, radios, and refrigerators, but even more surprised that the highest peaks of the mountain support several hotels and local offices for the police, bank of china, china post, and china telecom. (Again, remember there are no roads or helipads.) How do these establishments get supplies, you may ask? Well, one could conceivably use the cablecars at night to shuttle supplies to the hotels but from what we can tell, everything that goes in or out is carried by a steady stream of laborers with bamboo yokes. Among other things, we saw them carry food and vegetables, used laundry (going down), fresh laundry (going up), bags of cement, steel rebar, floor tiles, tanks of fuel, and crates of water.
More news from the mountain top in our next blog posts. Do you know the difference between a 3-star and 4-star rated public toilet? Answer coming soon!