Search the Community

Decided to share this little detour that I took in Feb this year when going to Xiamen for holiday. The original intention was to visit ancestor villages but due to lack of efforts, ended up just spent time in Xiamen and Huangshan (黄山). In short, Huangshan is not just a mountain but a series of ridges divided into north and south region supported by 4 cable car systems. You can choose to hike or take cable cars up the ridges, and then do the hiking, then descend by foot or cable cars. There is a short cable car ride within the ridges more for scenery at west side. To enter the mountain, you need to take the shuttle bus to the ticketing counters whether at north or south ends, pay entrance fee, and cable car fees if you intend to take cable car up the mountain which is highly recommended unless you are very fit and want to challenge the 3 to 6 hour route up depending on which one. Then after hiking the ridges which would take hours you can take the cable cars down the mountain or hike. The fees vary according to season, and this year all foreigners need to pay half price for entrance fee. It is advisable to spend one night on the ridges to catch the sunset and sun rise. Normally a visitor would arrive at foot of 黄山风景区 and stay one night to get ready for the strenuous hike. The South side also got 前山 and 后山 options supported by cable cars while the north side only supported by one cable car system, so now you know which side is more popular with hikers. The most popular route would be entering by 后山 and leaving by the 前山. The foot at south side got many hotels and I would recommend my choice of stay due to many reasons. https://www.trip.com/hotels/huangshan-hotel-detail-110631164/huangshan-yilong-anyue-hotel-huangshan-scenic-area-south-gate-transfer-center/?locale=en-XX&curr=SGD Firstly the hotel is cheap and clean, costing less than S$40 for 2 pax/night, think less than 2 years old. Secondly it has very friendly staff including those from the attached restaurant and minimart. Seems all owned by same boss. Ate in the restaurant for 2 dinners and very happy with the meals. No need to leave the hotel at all. Thirdly the onsite travel counter offers fantastic hiking service by doing a thorough explanation of the whole place and the best route to take depending on your liking or fitness, then help to make booking for all the tickets without any markup. I paid a RMB19 fee to join the hiking tour to have a guide following to tell you where are the famous stones and making sure everyone is safe throughout the trip. This was really wonderful as I would otherwise have to figure out where to buy the tickets at the counters but now it is all taken care of. Literally no need to do any pre-planning also can. Fourthly, the hotel is located just beside one of the shuttle bus stop so it is very convenient when returning to the hotel. The hiking tour that day would start from the north gate and coming back from the front gate at the south. The cable cars at the back gate at the south side were closed for maintenance when I was there, So now coming to the actual hiking part. My fellow traveler was my FIL and coming 75 years old. I overestimated his ability to walk up the endless flight of stairs at the beginning of the hike, so ended up paying RMB600 for the bamboo sedan chair ride for him for the first leg of the hike ending at 光明顶 (the building with a globe which serves as weather station) which is not related to the 武侠小说。It was supposed to be a 3.5km walk taking about 3 hours for one with normal fitness. After a short break at 光明顶 we walked for another 5km taking about 3.5hours to reach the cable car station to go down the mountain. If you are reasonably fit, you will benefit from the chirpy tour guide who tiredlessly shared many stories with regards to the numerous stones all over the place. I was proud that my FIL was able to complete the second leg of the trip despite stopping many time along the way. The bamboo sedan chair is really useful for those who have difficulty completing the hike and are reasonable priced also. I really enjoyed the hike as the weather was nice and scenery really beautiful. The pictures I took really did not do justice haha. By the way to reach the 黄山风景区, I took highspeed train to the 黄山北 station then took a taxi ride to the hotel. I spent another night at the hotel after the hike before taking the train ride back to Xiamen to continue my tour. Good to cater one or 2 rest days to allow recovery as the hike is really not that easy. Good if can spend time climbing stairs before the trip to have more enjoyable time instead of just panting and panting all the time in the beautiful mountain haha. So above is a brief sharing of my trip. Do let me know if you need more details. Good to watch more youtube videos to know more about the place before embarking on the trip.