The trek up the mountain

31st October
We had to get up at 6.30am which was far too early. This morning I had my first chinese breakfast, even though I have now been here for over two months. There was fried rice, noodles and some kind of bread stuff which was all really nice to eat so early in the morning!! Afterwards we went and packed our bags and got on the bus to the bottom of the mountains which was only half an hour away. When we got there a few of us needed to go the toilets so i asked our guide where they were and she pointed us in the right direction. When we got there and saw the toilets we didnt know what to say, I had heard that there were "public" toilets that didnt have any doors on, but I hadnt seen any before. It was an interesting experience.
We got on another bus which took us part way up the mountains - the driver way crazy, he drove so quickly around the bends, it didnt feel very safe. When got off the bus we had to wait for ages, but eventually we got our tickets and we got a cable car part-way up the mountain. When we were in the cable car it was so misty and at one point we couldnt actually see anything and it was a bit claustraphobic. But then when we were near the top we got above the mist and the views were amazing. We had to wait for everyone to get to the top and then our crazy tourguide made us all start walking.

The guide was soooooooo annoying. She walked too quickly all the time and kept getting ahead of us. And then when she was tired she would stop for a break. But by the time we had caught up with her she would just start walking again so we would hardly have anytime to rest. And she had a really annoying voice as well. I did not like her at all.

At one point tho we got a 20minute break so i took a few photos and had a rest. But i saw that there was a little stall that sold random stuff so i went to have a look and i bought the best thing ever. I got a medal which said i had climbed the mountains and i got my name engraved on it and the date, its sooooooo cool. But then the walking started again and we had to walk down a bit that was sooooooo steep. It was really frightening because there was nothing to hold on to apart from the rock, and if you fell down to the bottom you would just fall off the edge of the mountain because there was nothing there to stop you - in china there are no health and safety laws! When we eventually made it down the really steep bit we were faced with the steepest rock and hundreds and hundreds of steps - there were 633 because I counted. At one point we had to walk up a really really steep bit which was so narrow, and near the top the rocks were wet and slippy and it was really dangerous. I didnt enjoy it. And then when we got to the top we couldnt see the view because the mist was so thick!!!! We got to have lunch afterwards so we got a bit of a break.

After lunch we had did some more walking. After lots of steps we reached a meteorological observatory thing and we sat down for a bit and had a rest. There was another tourguide there and he looked really confused and we thought that he looked as though he had lost his tourgroup. He went over to talk to our guide and I decided that he was probably trying to swap a chinese person from his tourgroup for one of us, but then our guide hit him with our flag which was so funny and we carried on walking again. We got to one bit where the was a massive rock and a huuuuuuge drop off the edge and i was a bit too scared to go near the edge so i was just stood taking some photos and then the best thing happened - a chinese man asked if he could take a photo of me!!! Everyone else has had their photos taken by random chinese people but this was my first time, I hope he has it framed and put on display somewhere in his house. Eventually i got some courage and i went and lay down on the edge of the cliff, it was really scary tho.

we eventually made it to our hotel near the top of the mountain. we were all really tired so we just stayed inside and chatted for a while before tea. Our rooms we so cold tho, but luckily frankie discovered the massive coats in our wardrobe so we put those on and we were all really cool and went for tea in our matching coats. After tea we decided to go and sit somewhere outside on the mountain in the dark and tell ghost stories because it was halloween. It was really scary. We went and sat on a path that had a few dim lights going up it so we werent in total darkness. At one point and guy ran down the stairs past us and I was slightly concerned that he was running away from a murderer/bear/tiger.

After a while we got too cold and tired so we went back to the hotel and I had a nice warm shower and then went to bed.