CeD in Shanghai

Mountains:
1) Tianmushan – This is my favorite mountain between Hangzhou and Huangshan. There are direct buses from Hangzhou West bus station to the mountain. I have not been for a few years but I hear there are buses going from the base to the top of the mountain now too. I suggest walking up to the top and then taking a bus back down as the stairs are actually pretty tough. The “Kingdom of Trees” at the top if pretty spectacular; trees that were planted by monks hundreds of years ago along the path and are now huge. The ginkgo about 2/3 up the mountain is pretty amazing as well. Try to visit in late Oct to November when the fall color is best.

2) Moganshan – Not a bad overnight trip from Hangzhou. The bamboo is nice but I did not find the mountain itself to be that spectacular. I think this is because the mountain is nice but the view from the mountain is just looking out over flat land. The interesting part of Moganshan is the old villas and the mafia history. If you stay overnight, be sure to check out Naked Retreats (http://www.nakedretreats.cn/). The name might be deceptive, you wear clothes. Get to Moganshan by taking a bus from Hangzhou North bus station to Deqing (Wukang) and then switching to a taxi to Mogshanshan. 

3) Daming Shan – Daming Shan is all right, especially the “Grasslands” at the top of the mountain (~1300m) and the caves and waterfalls (probably best in the summer) throughout the trek. This place sees a fair amount of people on weekends. Buses leave from Hangzhou West bus station, more frequent departures from Lin’an West bus station. There are also nice tour buses leaving from Yellow Dragon Stadium in Hangzhou. 88rmb/ticket + 30rmb to take the cable car

4) Shan Gou Gou – Not really a mountain but a gorge hike in Yuhang. The place is pretty easy to get to and can be a good day trip from Hangzhou. Hike in the mountains, check out the reservoirs, and eat at the always popular nongjiale restaurants for some fresh country cooking. The best way to get here is via Shuangxi. There is a slow bus to Lin’an that leaves from the Hangzhou West bus station and stops at Shuangxi. You can also hop from bus to bus by going through Yuhang (Hangzhou to Yuhang, Yuhang to Changle or Jingshan, Changle or Jingshan to Shuangxi).

More on Yuhang:
Shuangxi town also has “Shuangxi Piaoliu” (rafting). This rafting is never impressive; however with Shan gou gou and Shuangxi rafting plus the scenery and food, Shuangxi has quite a few nice resorts being put up. I noticed people horseback riding from one hotel through the town towards the mountains. And be sure to check out the Siling Reservoir west of Shuangxi, it is more impressive than the mantoushan reservoir that is in Shan Gou Gou.

Changle Linchang / Changle forest- A few kilometers south of Shuangxi and back toward Yuhang is Changle forest, good for some off-road biking. Surrounded by mountains, it is pretty much dirt roads and narrow paths through bamboo forests and past 2 reservoirs. To get there, go to Changle and then find a way to get to Zhujiatou (about 5+km outside of Changle). You may be able to cut through Changle Linchang to get to the road to Jingshan Temple or to get to Shan Gou Gou, but I did not succeed when I went

Jingshan Temple – Up a huge mountain road with swtichbacks from Changle is Jingshan Temple. It’s popular with Japanese tourists but does not have much to offer. It is worth considering for the bike ride though; the road up is exhausting but the ride down is great, with beautiful valleys and bamboo everywhere. If you can find the “ancient road” (gudao) from a village called Miaoxia in northeastern Linan, you can walk up the ancient road with your bike, then check out the temple and cruise back down to Changle. 

Huanghu is a good place to get buses all over the best part of Yuhang. To get to Huanghu, you can take a city bus to Pingyao in northern Hangzhou, then switch to a ‘city’ bus to Huanghu. From Huanghu there are buses everywhere, including west towards Jiumutian. Huanghu does not have much but is actually a pretty laid back town. One place to check out near Huanghu is the Shifuti Reservoir (石扶梯水库), about 10km and a nice bike ride due north of town (cross the highway and head for the hills). This reservoir is very deep and on top of a hill so the water is always cold. There are some interesting houses going up on the reservoir. There is a path above the reservoir that cuts through the top of the mountain and back down towards Duihekou and on to either Anji or Deqing.

By the time you are on this path, you are not in Yuhang anymore and have crossed into Deqing. But this area is worth checking out. The Duihekou reservoir, aka Mogan Lake, is amazing. It’s like the West Lake in Hangzhou only bigger, deeper, and with taller hills surrounding it. There is a temple on the southeast side of the lake, and a few nice hotels near the dam, plus a lot of smaller ‘hotels’ on the side streets up the hills from the reservoir that are great for a romantic getaway. One of the nicest looking hotels, which appears to have been finished a few years ago, is already abandoned, which shows you how many people visit this place. I guess when you don’t list “ten scenes” to get your picture in front of no one cares to visit. 

From Mogan lake you can go west to Anji, east to Deqing (Wukang), or north to Moganshan.

Anji:
Bamboo forest (Zhuxiang): 
Most domestic tour groups to Anji will visit this site. It’s cool and everything, but there are equally impressive bamboo forests mentioned above too, not to mention bamboo all over the rest of Anji

Shiling and Dahan 72 Feng (aka 72 Pretty and Charming Peaks of Dahan):
Baofu Town in Anji is about 35km away from Dipu/Anji Long Distance Bus station. There are buses directly from the bus station or taxis waiting just outside the bus station. Baofu is a cool town of a comfortable size and a good place to go to Shiling (石岭), Dongling (董岭) and even back towards Tianhuangping天荒坪. It’s also a good place to get a taxi to Longwang Shan (龙王山)

Longwang Shan – 45rmb to get in. Pretty nice mountain with a fast-flowing river, but I would skip it to go to Tianmushan. 

From Baofu you can take a turn-off up to Shiling, ~8km between the 2. There is a mildly cool reservoir halfway between Baofu and Shiling, but the scenery and restaurants get more impressive as you go upward. By the time you get to Shiling, you will see the main entrance to the 72 Peaks of Dahan (大汉72峰). I’m not sure the ticket price, but it appears they have ziplines, ropes courses, group activity types stuff (maybe even paintball?). You can also just climb in the scenic area, the paths go all the way to Dongling and have a few waterfalls. 

If you continue up the hill past the 72 Peaks park entrance and bus parking lot, you will reach the main Shiling village, which is much quieter and has cheaper restaurants. 

From here, you can make a left at the hydro electric station and walk up the path along the waterfall (not much water in the fall) to Dongling (45 minutes). Or you can keep going straight at the hydro station to the last village on the road Huangnilong (黄泥垄), which has a longer but not as steep path to Dongling (1+hr), and a separate path further south toward Lin’an (to Pingxi平溪 and Datang大塘, which I will mention later when I visit them). 

Dongling:
Dongling is my favorite place in Anji, a village set on top of a high plateau with views all around. You can see Tianmushan on a clear day from the top; the other high peak you might notice is Longwang Shan. The food is fresh and excellent, but restaurants and lodging are hard to find. It only takes about 2 hours to see the entire village anyway, and you will be mostly looking at the view down the mountains instead of the village itself.

If you do not hike to Dongling from Shiling, there is also a road that goes to Dongling from Baofu. This road goes parallel to the Baofu to Shiling road. Halfway up the road to Dongling, it forks toward Shitadi (石塔底). About 3km after the fork in the road you will see a bridge with a stone stairway, which you can climb for about an hour to get to the backdoor to Tianhuangping. There is no reason to go to Shitadi. There is a small “natural” village just after the stairway to Tianhuangping for food. At the top of the stairway, stay left to get to the village and right to get to Tianhuangping. Then just look for the giant Tianhuangping hotel to get to the top of Tianhuangping and find the scenic area.

Tianhuangping:
Want to go skiing in Zhejiang? At 1300m, Tianhuangping is one of the few places where you can go skiing in the winter. But don’t expect anything challenging, long or fast. 

I have not done any research on Tianhuangping’s reservoir (check out the infrastructure on google maps), but according to the random farmers in a village in Linan, the reservoir’s water level decreases in the daytime when everyone is using the hydro electricity, and increases in the nighttime when people sleep and no one is using electricity. Who knows the real reason, but the water level in this reservoir changes on an hourly basis, and that’s what makes it a big tourist attraction in Anji. 

The road back down from Tianhuangping takes you to the main Anji – Lin’an highway, and would be a fun ride on a bike or a Ferrari- extreme downhill with a tunnel through the mountain too.

Lin’an to Yuhang via Linjiatang and Jiumutian:
Linjiatang 林家塘 and Jiumutian 九亩田 are both great places, especially Linjiatang. The best time to do this trip is in the fall, or after a heavy rain when the waterfalls are most powerful. There are public buses that ply the entire route I am about to decribe:

First, you need to get to either Gaohong (高虹) or Hengfan 橫畈, which are about 20 – 25km due north of Lin’an. From these 2 towns, you are walking or riding distance to Shuitaozhuang 水涛庄.

Immediately after Shuitaozhuang there is a steep climb to the top of the dam of the Shuitaozhuang reservoir, a beautiful reservoir surrounded by hills but not very good for swimming. You can go around the reservoir on either side– a motorcycle path on the east side or a paved road on the west side– they both end up at the same place. 

After the reservoir, you are on a 20km long stretch of narrow road through the bottom of the gorge next to the river. The road heads in a north-northwest direction and there will be a few increasingly isolated villages along the way. The villages have old buildings, a few old mills and even some Huizhou-style architecture. You might find some good swimming holes and peaceful waterfalls along the road too especially in the summer. 

The biggest of these villages is Longshang 龙上, which is also one of the few places where the road forks. If you turn left, you cross the river and start to head up, way up to Mugongshan 木公山 village. The village is not much but is very high up and has a view all the way to both the city of Lin’an and out as far as Tianmushan. If you go right at Longshang, you will go up an equally steep hill to Dingyun Temple 定云寺, which is in my opinion more interesting than Jingshan Temple and certainly has fewer tourists (few people at all). You can tell why the put a temple at this spot, the fengshui is great. 

Straight at Longshang will take you towards Linjiatang. There will be one more moderately sized village on this road before the righthand turn to Linjiatang at about the 22km marker of the road. If you do not turn right at Linjiatang, you have a steep series of switchbacks which will eventually take you to the Lin’an – Anji “highway” near Tianhuangping mentioned in my previous post.

Making the right turn to Linjiatang is steep too, about 4km to the actual village of Linjiatang. The view from this road all the way back down the gorge is amazing. 

Linjiatang sits at about 900m. The population is about 400 people. The main “attraction” is the group of huge 400year old pine trees in the center of the village next to a crystal clean spring. It is worth making the extra steep climb to check out these trees because this is where the actual “village” is; otherwise you will only get to see a few farmhouse/restaurants along the main road. After Linjiatang, the road narrows even further (basically a plow road) and you are in the organic farm.

You can stay at Linjiatang for cheap. Elderly Shanghaiese like to stay there during the peak of summer because it is cooler there (no A/C needed). Generally speaking you can expect to pay 50 – 80rmb per person per day for room and board (2 meals). That’s a pretty good deal. If you don’t have time to stay overnight, at least have lunch there. The organic vegetables are some of the best food I’ve had in China and they picked some of them only after we ordered. Linjiatang is also a good place to get things like famous Lin’an chestnuts (in October and November, 30 – 50rmb per jin– make a great gift to Chinese friends). You can also get “wild kiwis” which was something new for me– small and flavorful kiwis (in August). Also the dried bamboo (sun gan) is pretty good. 

There is one more tiny village beyond Linjiatang on the plow road by the organic farm but no reason to go there– it is just the bus turnaround spot. The best way to exit Linjiatang is to climb over the top of the hill (across the road from the organic farm you will find the trail, ask locals for help). This path takes about 45 minutes – 25 uphill and 20 downhill – to Jiumutian. The path crosses the Linan/Anji border. You might see wild fruit growing along the path in the summer.

Jiumutian is similar to Linjiatang in isolation, population and altitude but I still like Linjiatang better. There are plenty of place to eat and sleep in Jiumutian as well. There is only one road down from Jiumutian, a steep series of switchbacks for several kilometers, probably a good way to kill yourself by bus or bike. You can also go to the hydro station halfway down the hill for a swim and a good hike along the river the rest of the way.

After reaching the bottom of the hill, the next village is Chuancun船村 which is worth wandering through but does not have much to offer in terms of food and lodging. The road after Chuancun starts to veer north to Shanchuan 山川toward downtown Anji (梯铺). Just before you hit Shanchuan, you will see a righthand turn down a dirt road (a sign at the turnoff advertises a Nongjiale restaurant 150m down the road). You can take this dirt road as it become a dirt path along a wide river with swimming and bridge jumping. The dirt path eventually leads to a road (3km after the Nongjiale restaurant) at the northeastern tip of Siling reservoir and the entrance to Shan Gou Gou mentioned in previous posts. From here you can hike Shan Gou Gou or easily get to Shuangxi and onward to Hangzhou.

If you do not make a right onto the dirt road, there is also a more obviously marked paved road just before Shanchuan that heads toward Huanghu and goes north of the Siling reservoir. This is the best way to take if you are going by bus. Getting from Huanghu to Hangzhou is easy too.