Project Description
Huangshan, Anhui province.
Huangshan or “Yellow Mountain” is one of those Ancient Chinese folkloric and superstitious favourites. Said to be the mountain you visit so you don’t have to see any others, people do, each year in their hundreds of thousands, if not millions…
It is certainly not the place to visit during the national holidays when there may be upwards of 25,000 people on the mountain’s narrow, steep and in places very precipitous pathways. It is strictly one way traffic. I went there in the off season if there is such a thing. Seemed like a lot of people there to me, but it was quiet I was told.
Frankly the place is spectacular and supposed to be one of the locations from where James Cameron drew inspiration for the movie Avatar.
But be ready to hike. If there is any particular hotel, restaurant or site that you want to stay in, eat at, visit or just get back to in order to leave the mountain, it will involve a long walk, and many stairs. We stayed overnight in a cheap hotel at the top and rose early to try and see the sunrise over the “Cloudy Sea” as the locals call it. Sadly it was foggy and overcast.
In the valleys around the mountain there are some old, quaint and Unesco world heritage listed villages; Xidi, Hongcun and others. They have their own distinctive Hui architecture and are worth visiting in the off season.
