Village hopping time and we start our day at 7am bashing through the country side around Huizhou Villages, which is so picturesque that hordes of art students pave the streets making sketches of the alleyways and the rivers running alongside the paths. In total we visit two of the villages and walk around past cows wading in streams and horses tied up in forested areas, up to a pagoda perched on a hill where we can see over one of the villages and meet a couple fromHolland who have been traveling around China. One thing that strikes me, is how everybody can speak amazing English. Everyone I have met in Hostels, whether they are from Denmark, Holland, France, Italy, Germany, Chile, they all speak amazing English and when you have aChilean, a German and a Brit in the room as we had in Xi'an, the default language of communication is English, as it's the only way they can communicate with each other. To check into their hostels and hotels they all have to speak English, which isn't even the first language of the country they are in, but it's the only common ground. I'm so impressed by it and feel so inadequate that I all I can do is hazard a guess at some passable french if I am pushed to.
When we get back to the hostel we book our bus to Huang Shan mountain leaving at 6am the next morning, this time round however it's a tourist mountain and isn't that dangerous. We will take the cable up, hike around the summit area for a couple of hours and then walk backdown what is labeled as China's most beautiful peak.
The 17.10 bus to Huang Shan has our name on it, but before we leave the cosmopolitan metropolis of Shanghai, we go and meet Sam for some lunch at his office block over looking the western side of Shanghai. It's supposed to be pork ribs, but is definitely breaded chicken orsomething like that, none the less it tastes great and it's nice to have a real meal. Sam's working for a company who send Chinese students from wealthy families overseas to the UK and America to study in boarding schools or Universities. They arrange the transport, fees and all the complications and also help the students with English lessons so they can pass the entrance exams. It's an interesting concept and is a testament to how fast China is evolving and the amount of Chinese who have cashed in on it's development, especially when you consider the fees alone for the schools they deal with start at over £6,000 a year and you can eat a good meal in China for 50p.
We depart Sam and jump on our west bound bus for Huang Shan City (a.k.a. Tunxi), which has all of around 10 people including the driver conductor and us. It pulls into some where in Huang Shan at about 11.30 and we take the safe option and take a taxi to our hostel, which appears to be a massive complex and Juste shares her 6 person dorm with no one, while I have three people. The guy at reception tells us he will help us get our onward train tickets and also point us in the way of getting to the Huizhou villages tomorrow if we meet him when his shift ends at 7am. An aggressive start to the day tomorrow then.
