From the beginning of June Chima, Harry and I had been taking about taking a trip to Changbaishan nature reserve which is the biggest in China and one of the few places on earth that still has wild Pandas and Tigers. After some really minor planning (the night before) we decided to go to Changbaishan for a few days followed by a few days in Dandong which is a bit south in Liaoning province.
(Continuation from post: Week 26) On thursday morning we confronted the "small" translator again and asked her if we can collect the passport. She said no because we need the receipt so we said make us a photocopy and then we will collect it. She then said no I must come with, so we said fine we will come with. After speaking to the headmistress she called the visa office and miraculously the passport was ready, no printing mistakes etc. Then she told us she can't find the receipt, anyway in the end after about 2 hours of debating and arguing we finally got what we wanted. Like a wise old man once told me "the squeeky wheel gets the grease". I also got a brand new $100 bill which was for the amount I had overpaid, this was a surprise. When we got to Siping everything worked out fine with the passport. Chima then had to get money at Western Union and this did not work out. Even though he has gotten money from the same consultant at the same branch at least once a month for the past 7 months they said his name is written in the wrong order. We just left that and decided to try another Western Union when we got to Dandong closer to the end of our journey.
We went to an army surplus store and bought raincoats, torches and a tent because we had decided that we wanted to try and camp at least one night on Changbashan even though camping on Changbaishan is not allowed.
The train left Siping at midnight and we had a soft sleeper which was pretty good, there are no direct trains to the stations at Changbaishan so we first had to get to Tonghua and then get on another train to get to Baihe. We arrived in Tonghua at 6:30am and left for Baihe at 8:00am which is the station located at the northern peak (the north and west peaks are seperated a 100km by road and rail). On our 8 hour train ride we then decided to get off a stop early at Songjianghe (west peak) and try go camp on the west peak.
After arriving in this tiny village we bought tons supplies and took a taxi to the mountain, on the way we stopped again to buy a wok so that we could cook noodles and boil water. We arrived at the west peak at around 13:30 and there weren't many tourists around just one tour group from Hong Kong which was on the same bus as us. This was not good for our plan as we foreigners always stick out and attract a lot of attention. This was made worse by the fact that each one of us has a huge backpack with water bottles hanging off the back.
The bus ride up the wet windy road to top was like a kyalami trackday experience, there was a constant vibration from the ABS and ESP which was helping the bus stay out of the guard rails. When we finally got to the summit we were questioned by some park officials, they wanted to know why we had so many bags with us, they told us camping is not allowed. We ignored them by saying "bu mingbai - I dont understand" (this always works in China when an offical tells you something you don't want to hear) and proceeded up the 1238 stairs to the west peak.
The weather was terrible, there was dense fog and cloud cover as well as a light rain. When we finally got to the peak there was nothing to see, we had spent 45 minutes climbing stairs with 30kg on our backs for nothing. We also realised that because of the vegatation, bad visibility and close proximity of the North Korean border camping wouldn't be easy, before we could make any decision two officials subtly forced us back down to the bus stop. On the ride back down to the main gate, we stopped of at a beautiful canyon and underground forest, during all this time we had 3 park officials following us everywhere. They knew our intentions and they were not going to let us succeed, this just made us more willing to try.
At 17:00 we got back to the main gate and had to make a decision to either camp out in the car park or stay at a hotel at the west peak and then try again on the following day to camp up there. The other option was try to get back to Songjianghe get a train to Baihe (North peak) and stay there overnight. In the end we managed to get a taxi and luckily I had my laptop and phone so I could check train tickets, we made it in time to buy tickets and get on a train to Baihe, we arrived there just after midnight. Upon arrival there were many people haggling us, offering accommodation but we all refused and walked to the hostel (Woodland Youth Hostel) which we had found in the Lonely planet book.
The following day we got up, had breakfast and spoke to the people at the hostel which were quite informative. That same day we went river rafting which was very fun despite the fact that the river wasn't half as extreme as we made it out to be. That evening we had dinner at a Korean restaurant which was really good. Ee had a Korean style BBQ which was the best meat I've eaten in China but nothing close to a 28 day matured Woolworths Ribeye steak with Woolworths Braai marinade. We had then also decided to go to the northern peak the following day with the intention of camping. So we left all the things we didn't need at the hostel and only took the bare minimum with to make our bags look as discrete as possible. It was a beautiful sunny day so the weather was on our side. We got to the north peak I had to do some complaining in order to pay student prices which had been much easier at the west peak. At the north we took a 4WD up a very windy road to the peak and on the way the elevation increased from about 1800m to 2750m.
We finally got to see Heaven Lake which we didn't get to see at the western peak. I've seen many amazing things and this is just spectacular, beyond words. Heaven Lake is an old inactive volcano which over time has become a glacier lake at an altitude of 2700m. The deepest part of the lake is over 300m deep. The colours of the water keep changing because the clouds are slow and the water is partially frozen and the water keeps moving around, I can't actually describe it, it is beyond words. After spending an hour up at the peak clouds started moving in and visibility was worsening again and at that point we decided to just walk off into the wild and find a camping spot. Needless to say we managed to get away without being seen and just kept walking for for about 2 hours. There were so many different types of vegetation as we walked along. After 2:30 hours and some heavy rain we found a good spot next to a river in a canyon. We set up our tent and Chima who watches a lot of Bear Grylle easily made a fire despite the light drizzle, after eating the rain increased so we all jumped into the tent and went to bed. I struggled to sleep because it was really cold at night and the sleeping bag I was using was very thing. But the next day waking up in the middle of nowhere with nobody around (except a Scotsman and Trinidadian) next to a river just out in nature was amazing.
At about 10:00 we decided to walk back to the bus stop where we got the 4WD up to the peak, after walking for 4 hours through, snow, ice, dense forests, dense vegetations, fields of wild orchids and open fields we finally got back and managed to blend in without being noticed. We took a bus to the Waterfall, at this point we were so tired so we took a taxi back to the hostel, fetched our stuff and went straight to the train station to buy tickets to Dandong which was our next stop. The train to Dandong was 18 hours but we had a soft sleeper cabin so it was a pleasant journey. We arrived at about 8:00am and found a place to stay very easily. Dandong is one of a few cities in China that directly borders with North Korea. The only thing seperating the two countries is a 200 meter wide river (Yalu River). A UN resolution currently bans the export of luxury items into North Korea, many chinese companies exploit this and export, TV's, Cigarettes, Alcohol and other luxury items over the Yalu river into North Korea ($2bn USD a year). Two thirds of Dandong is actually Korean and the main reason why we went there was two see the part of the great wall which separates the two countries called Hu Shan 虎山 (Tiger Mountain).
On our first evening we had dinner at a Korean restaurant, we had sushi, a seafood pot and some special Korean steak cut into slices. Afterwards we went to a Coffee shop called Peters coffee which is run by a Canadian family. The coffee shop had real Lavazza coffee, cheese cake, chocolate cake and brownies, all of us stuffed ourselves their slogan "best coffee on the border" is definitely true. The following day we took a boat ride along the river to get a closer look at North Korea which basically looked like a very rural china with even older machinery and vehicles. The boat ride was short and definitely not worth the 70RMB but at least I can say I've been 50 meters from North Korea and gotten a close up of some suffering North Koreans.
Afterwards we went to Hushan 虎山 (Tiger Mountain) and had a look at this not so great great-wall. It was only a very short piece and it was very reconstructed which made it look very new and had no original feel to it but the view of North Korea was very good.
We stayed an extra day in Dandong but didn't do much because we were actually very tired from all the walking and exploring we had done. The following morning we took a train to Shenyang, after a lot of trouble with trains we ended up leaving there at about 19:00 and got to Siping just before 21:00. Because it was so late we ended up staying in Siping and went back to the academy the following day.
In total the trip was really amazing, I definitely want to try and go back to Changbaishan maybe in Autumn when the colours are different.
