Yunmeng Mountain Adventures- Easter Sunday

Close your eyes for a minute, and imagine… Imagine a small white hut with a blue roof, in the middle of nowhere. Now put together a long drop toilet and a squat. Take away any sort of private cubicle ideas; cause this time you’ll be shitting with someone else. So close to each other that you can feel each other’s body heat and touch hands. Ew! I experienced the most disgusting way of going to the toilet on Easter Sunday.

Two of my roommates had invited me on this mountain climb tour to Yunmeng. I was so keen, and incredibly motivated to conquer a mountain! We left home just after 6am and caught a bus and train into the city. It took us an hour and a half to get into the city with no traffic. The tour bus left at 7:45am and was filled with Chinese locals. During the journey, people was required to get out of his or her seat and walk to the front and briefly introduce themselves.

“大家好！我叫Georgia。我是新西兰人，但是我住在澳大利亚。我在澳大利亚学习中文。我在北京三个月，谢谢”！

It took us just over three hours to get to the mountain, passed the Great Wall, and in the middle of nowhere somewhere. I had no idea where we were; I only knew that we were climbing some big ass mountain 1,414 meters above sea level. Climbing the mountain was pretty difficult, at some points I was almost down on my hands and knees physically pulling myself up because it was so steep. The difficulty level was rated medium-difficult, but for someone who has never climbed a mountain before, I would definitely say difficult to deathly. I haven’t been able to do any hard-core exercise while being in China, except for the gym twice. I have been more focussed on work and the experience overall and not really thinking about fitness or anything. The gym is a little expensive over here, about $75AUD per week, so I’m not too keen on paying that much. The amount of times I wanted to give up climbing this damn thing was countless. I struggled. Just when you think you are almost at the top, there was still about 1 or 2 hours to go. I was sweating so much and could feel my backpack sticking to my back. My breathing went a bit funny each time we would take a rest for a few minutes. It was almost like altitude sickness or something; I’m not sure, but something very similar to asthma. I was having coughing fits and every breath was very short and fast. I wanted to give up about half way; I was absolutely exhausted by this time. However, I was determined to get to the top considering it took about 5 hours to get there with all the transport we took. One thing that did motivate me to keep going was the amount of people that were climbing this mountain. It was obviously a big tourist attraction for the Chinese. The whole time I was thinking ‘We are only human, if they can do it, I can do it’.

4 hours later and we made it to the top! It brought tears to my eyes as it was such an achievement and I was so proud to have made it! I’m glad I hadn’t given up, the view was magnificent. Absolutely beautiful! We spent about 20 minutes taking heaps of photos and videos because the view was so spectacular; I had never seen anything like it before. Just wow, it was so breath-taking.

Going down the mountain was nice and easy with wooden steps rather than gravel and logs. However, it was pretty scary as our legs felt like jelly and I felt as though I could have collapsed at any time. The four of us were so happy while heading down the mountain, we ran for most of it! One of my roommates had this awesome portable speaker that she had tied to her backpack, so we had some lovely Chinese music to listen to- along with her crazy voice! I couldn’t stop laughing when my roommate started screaming out the lyrics to this Chinese song! It was so much fun running down the mountain! It took us just over two hours to get to the bottom and back on the bus. I was hoping to take a nap on the way home, but my heart was pumping so fast that I never got a chance. My roommates’ boyfriends’ friend shouted us all dinner at some fancy restaurant in the city, which was so nice!

Easter Monday consisted of nothing but BED for the whole day. I was supposed to be at The Great Wall on this day, but didn’t quite make it. My entire body was in extreme pain. I felt as though I had tore something in the back of both legs. I looked like an absolute retard trying to walk around. I didn’t get out of bed until about 3pm that day. At 8PM that night my roommate and I took the lift down to level 1 and got a massage. I was almost screaming in pain, tears were brought to my eyes. I’m so ticklish, so even though I was in so much pain, I was laughing at the same time! The massage was so cheap, 30 yuan for the two of us for forty minutes! I slept like a baby that night. Don’t think I’ll be mountain climbing for awhile! Not until they upgrade those toilets haha!