Hunyuan

Hunyuan

The trucks just keep on coming. We believe one convoy that passed us was in the order of 25 nose-to-tail trucks after we started counting about halfway through and got to 15. We may not be following the silk road but we are definitely following the truckers road!

Anyway, we had a magnificent climb up to 1500m today with snowy mountains on one side of us and sun soaked on the other. A cheeky bet guessing the altitude we would climb to left Kate 40m short and doing the laundry that evening. A fast and freezing descent proceeded the climb, with stunning views across the plains. Our hotel room in Hunyuan, even though a bit noisy, had a grand view of some of the surrounding mountains.

False summit!

As a rest day in Hunyuan we biked 5km out of town to see the Hanging Monastery. This ancient structure is set into the cliffs, facing the dominating Mount Hengshan.

Hanging on to the Hanging Monastery

We then biked a further 3km to Mount Hengshan itself – one of the Five Great Mountains of China. Taxi drivers insisted we could not bike the 5km up the mountain road, but instead had to take a taxi. Luckily, we were saved this added expense as the man on the roads gate spoke perfect English (an utter rarity) and told us to purchase a ticket and let us through. After a short grunt up the mountain road we entered Mount Hengshan scenic spot. This was a climb (walking this time, not on our bikes) to 2,016m past beautiful old buildings – palaces and prayer halls – all set into the side of the mountain. The view from the top was a spectacular panorama of a lake, the rest of the mountain range, and the hand ploughed plains heading west and north to Datong.  I have to admit that my preconceptions from school field trips about Chinese people and their level of fitness have gone right out the window, as the young and old, fat and thin, flat shoed and high heeled all made their way merrily up the mountain.

On return to the car park at the top of the mountain road we found ourselves heavy hearted and holding our breath as we approached the spot we had parked our bikes and found that they weren’t there. Before panic totally set in we realised the bikes were tucked away 3m from where we had locked them. Assuming someone did not like them leaning against a sign post, they must have been moved, chains and all.

Once again, a wee bet about how long it would take us to descend and reach the hotel left Kate on laundry duty.