Day 4: Arriving in the Yellow Mountains

Early in the morning of the fourth day, we took the first available bus from Suzhou to Huangshan (黃山) , the famous mountain range that reached 1,800m and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. After a 6 hour ride we took a room in a hotel and started off to our first adventure to visit a nice and peaceful waterfall near the Huangshan mountains. The place itself offered a beautiful and quiet scenery and the water of the falls was crystal clear. The whole way up to the top however we were accompanied by some rather disturbing techno music blasting out of some random speakers, which did not seem to bother the Chinese visitors much (I was the only non-Chinese). At the top there was a pavilion featuring some live singing acts of semi-naked transvestites (even more disturbing), to entertain the local crowd. Fascinated by the scenery of the waterfall we did not pay too much attention to the entertainment program offered.

After returning from the falls we decided to spoil ourselves a bit with some amusement and went white-water rafting (kind of). The paddling along the river and the water slides in between were fun, but they cannot be compared with the intense water battles we had with some other Chinese boats during the ride. Soaked wet and tired we returned to the hotel to pack our bags for the departure to the Huangshan mountains hiking track early morning on the next day.