Hengshan, the CRH, Travel in China

This past weekend I went on a foray to Hengshan.  Hengshan has a very famous mountain that had Taoist, Buddist and Confucius temples on it.  It is a one of the 5 famous religious mountains in China.  It just happens to be in Hengshan.  My dear friends Tina and Jooik also happen to be in Hengshan.  Tina's birthday was on Monday, so it seemed like a good weekend to go.  Hengshan is the mountain, the town is Nanyue.  Hengshan is 120km south of Changsha.  But the shortest part of the journey was taking the train from South Changsha to West Hengshan, it took a half an hour by bullet train.  The CRH is without a doubt the cleanest form of travel in Hunan.  No beetlenut was spit out, no one was smoking.  They also give all the instructions in English and Chinese, every car has a light up sign that tells you how fast you are going, and what the next stop is.  It would alternate between English and Chinese.  The CRH was easier to navigate than the TGV!  Maybe it has changed, but when I last took the TGV they only spoke in french.  I speak pretty good french, but they spoke so fast I spent the first section of the ride worried I was on the wrong train!  No such problem with the CRH!  All the trains are labeled with Alphanumeric labels so you can find what gate you have.

Once I got to Hengshan Xi Station, I was worried about being able to make it to Nanyue.  But a woman named Free showed me the way, I continue to kick myself for not getting her contact information.  She is a student at Hunan Normal University.  Once I got on the bus, they asked me for 4 kuai.  I had 3 kuai and a 50.  They wouldn't take the 50, so some nice person gave me the one kuai I was missing.  The bus had no suspension and the road had major cracks.  It was a bumpy ride, but the country was beautiful and there were tons of incense shops.  The bus stopped in Nanyue and everyone got off.  I decided to walk around, I picked a direction and started walking.  Half looking for a bathroom, half looking for food.  I asked some people where to find Tina and Jooik's school, they said "Follow us we will walk there with you."  So I followed them.  "Are you a teacher there?"  "No, my friend is"  "Oh the teacher who runs."  Tina apparently is famous for running around town, she is training for a marathon on the great wall in may!  So they led me to the School.  The school is nestled in the mountains.  If you sit on the football field and look up, you see forest covered mountains.  And a tiny temple that lights up at night.

It turns out a ton of us showed up to celebrate Tina's birthday.  There were 11 of us.  Her liaison reserved a place at a restaurant for us, and ordered for us.  It was a fantastic meal.  Jooik and Laura snuck off and bought some cake on the way back!  So we had a mini late birthday celebration.  Including a flower candle that was supposed to open and sing.  But didn't work so well.  It ended up being a melted mass of plastic!  On top of an angel food cake, with whipped cream like frosting.  There were grapes, kiwis, dragonfruit, pineapple and tomatoes on top of this cake.  Strips of pink white chocolate surrounded the cake.  It was extremely sweet.  So after we all caught up, we crashed in preparation for climbing the mountain.  We had been warned it would take a long time.  But we were not quite prepared for how long it would really take!  But not because we hadn't been warned.

So we started climbing the mountain at about 9am and left the mountain at about 6.  It took a really long time. We took a round about way, to avoid most of the cars and buses.  The hike up went through several different stages.  We started in temperate rain forest, went into conifers, and then up to shrubs and then up to conifers again.  Although I think the last layer was planted.  The hike was beautiful and the temple at the top was pretty amazing!  After all the climbing, we ate dinner.  Cait and I headed to the train station in a cab that had to stop and shove his headlight back in.  It was amusing!  Then we bought our tickets, for some reason mine was way more expensive than if on the way here.  I think that is because I only had to wait 20 minutes.  I managed to catch the last bus to Yi Zhong, something I was very happy about.  I made it home and took a hot shower.  The next day, I felt like I was 100 years old.  I could barely move!