Cursed with Pleasant Weather

Cursed with Pleasant Weather
Originally uploaded by weberpoint

Huang Shan is famous for its fog and clouds swirling among the granite
spires. It's that feature that draws millions of visitors each year, and
earned it a spot as a UN World Heritage site. What we got when we arrived
was sunny weather. The scenery itself if breathtaking, and well worth the
visit no matter what the weather brings. Unfortunately, cloudless skies are
bad for photography. All of the pictures that I took pretty much suck.

The other remarkable feature of Huang Shan, also known as the Yellow
Mountains, is its stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. Due to the topology of
the area, going up or going down is the only way to go anywhere. Friends
who know me will recognize that I am not a big fan of stairs. I'm more of
an elevator kind of guy. If you look closely at the first photo (or last -
I don't know what order blogger will put these in), you will get an idea of
the kind of terrain that we were travelling on for two days. The next photo
is a close-up from the first.

Even though these mountains are rugged and remote, there is quite a bit of
construction at the top. There are at least six hotels and several
restaurants. The materials for building all of these structures was brought
up from the base of the mountain (4,000 ft below) on the backs of porters.
Basically, one brick at a time. The construction is continuing as there is
a great demand from the ever increasing number of visitors (mostly Chinese).
Huang Shan may even lose its World Heritage designation because of this
build-out.

Today, we flew to Kunming, in Yunnan province. Tomorrow, after breakfast,
we will be on the road all day to the remote border region which is home to
several hill tribes and to the terraced rice paddies. It is very unlikely
that I will have internet access for the next three days, so I will probably
post next from Guilin. I could be wrong about the internet - I had it at
the hotel on top of Huang Shan.