Apr/104
the hui hang ancient tea road
last weekend, my friends and i spent saturday hiking the hui hang ancient trail – it was an old tea route between the provinces of anhui and zhejiang – about 15km in an old almost untouched valley (no cell phone reception!) in between two of the more populous provinces in china.
there’s plenty of hiking companies who will take you out there, but with a little bit of work and some chinese ability, you don’t need to spend the 100 USD that some companies are charging.
how we did it:
1. late night bus to jixi. jixi is the hometown of hu jintao – and a four hour bus ride from shanghai which costs about 120 rmb. the buses left from a private station near the zhongshan north road station on line 1.
2. across the street from the long distance bus station in jixi – there is a village level bus station – just ask around for buses vans headed towards the hui hang gu dao/ancient road. should cost around 6 rmb.
3. from there follow the handpainted signs towards the ancient road. its fairly well signposted with one turn up the valley which we almost missed and lots of food, drinks and a few guesthouses along the way. and some spectacular views – especially for being a short weekend trip from shanghai.
4. by the end of your hike you can head to some county level seats – we just booked a mini bus all the way back to hangzhou and then some of us came directly back to shanghai that night.
here’s the photos:
Mar/102
hiking and congee
one of the things which i miss most about living in shanghai is the easy access to nature i had growing up in california – or even living in one of the world’s most claustrophobic and crowded cities – hong kong.
yes, that’s right, even if hk is one of the most urban places in the world, one is only a 15 minute cab ride from getting into nature.
just over the last chinese new year, my friend andrew suggested we do a hike from the south side of hong kong island over the wong nai chung gap towards the north side, starting near stanley hiking over “the twins” and bypassing “violet hill.”
a view of stanley from the first twin
