#tunxi

A dragonfly perches on a lotus flower at the Geshan scenic spot in Tunxi, Huangshan City, east China's Anhui Province

China 2017

Ni baru china town beneran wkwk #tunxioldstreet #tunxioldtown #tunxi #chinatown (at Tunxi Old Street)

Semacam aneka sambal dan variasinya #tunxi #tunxioldtown #tunxioldstreet (at Tunxi Old Street)

La mauvaise surprise de ce début de voyage a été l'arrivée soudaine de la pluie, mais tant pis ! Nous sommes là pour découvrir les paysages et villages de Huangshan alors à nos sacs à dos !

Huangshan, the most beautiful mountain in China, apparently. Not that I saw it. I had dysentery. Fortunately Gin made it up the hills so I spose that's a 50% win, apart from Mr. Hu's bathroom facilities. Though they coped well given the circumstances. So, logistics. There's now a daily bullet train direct from Shanghai Hongqiao to 'Huangshan City' (formally Tunxi, but renamed to make it sound like its next to Huangshan, but it's not). The 8.31am train was punctual, comfortable and speedy as always and, other than the strange in-and-out at Shangrao, Jiangxi that required every row of seats to be turned around (bullet train seats revolve so they always face forward), uneventful. Plenty of time for a monster session of Yannuf (Janif/ Jaanuf, Yaanev?!?) and a rice box for lunch. Andrew 1:0 Gin. Yes! Now, Huangshan City isn't really that close to Huangshan but since a mega bullet train terminal has just been built, there's a mega bus terminal to go with it. On a Thursday it's empty. Was easy to leave a backpack in luggage storage, collect onward train tickets for 3 days time, go to the cash machine and grab a drink. Bus tickets to Tangkou (which IS next to the south gate of Huangshan national park) were 20 kuai and it only took 40 mins or so on the toll road. Mr. Hu (of Mr. Hu Hotel fame) collected us, got us checked in to his cheap but serviceable hotel (90 a night for a twin en suite) then offered to run us to a waterfall hike for a coupla quid petrol money. Done. Thanks Mr. Hu! Great hike, nice valley and an impressive series of Nine Dragon waterfalls. Noodles, pork & bamboo shoots, tomato egg etc for dinner. Followed by dysentery. I'll save the details but I did not climb Huangshan. Gin did and I hear it rained, he got lost due to poor signposting, Chinese tour groups poked him with umbrellas, he stayed in an overpriced dormitory on a building site and was charged 90 kuai for the cable car down. Still, sounds better than the runs. So, dismal hiking failure aside we hopped on the 20 kuai bus back to Tunxi (Huangshan City) checked out the fairly interesting Old Street, drank tea, explored an antiquity museum (constructed 1996) then cautiously ate a toasted plastic cheese sarnie with a salt & blackcurrant juice. Nicer than the classic choice of red river spider, live pheasant or watermelon fed hedgehog (why don't they just share the hedge?!?) on offer in town. Suitably recovered we played many more games of Yannuf and several rounds of pool at Cozy Hostel (fairly decent for a twin room at 115 kuai a night although it was near the coach station so take your ear plugs!) Andrew 1:8 Gin (I claim that I was somewhat affected by not eating for 48 hours and suffering acute dehydration) A nice Sunday morning explore of the new 'old street' and new 'old bridge', new 'old gate' etc all presumably recently built to serve the future influx of tourists from the new (actually new) bullet train station. Then a swift juice before we headed back to Huangshan North train station. Which we discovered is not in Huangshan City. And it's not the same as Huangshan Railway station. Turns out it's about 10km away and we couldn't remember which station we had left Gin's bag in the locker. After some swift discussion with Drives, a couple of U-turns and a bit of Apple mapping we got to where we needed to be with enough time for a swift milk tea. Bullet train left one minute before schedule, best of nineteen for Janif...?! Huangshan 1:0 the Englishman's bowels.

Anhui China by xtphotogenics