Cableway to Heaven

We had no idea if Mount Huashan would be anywhere near as glorious as the Yellow Mountains had been. But we weren’t going there for its iconic beauty. We were going there because, high up on the top of the cliff, was the deadliest walkway in the world!

When we’d been first looking at China as part of our route through to Australia I had spent hours on the Internet. I’d wake up at 4:30 most mornings and do a couple of hours of research before I went to work.

In one of those early morning sessions I came across a video showing a ‘dude’ stood on some old looking wooden planks, only a couple of feet wide. He had a selfie stick and was leaning out over a 2000 meter sheer drop.

‘I have to do that!’

I had shown it to Theo and Rosa who both thought I was nuts… They had forgotten all about it.

But I hadn’t : )

As the end of our time in China approached, I casually dropped it into the conversation… pointing out that Mount Huashan was one of the five sacred mountains of China.

After we realised that, ‘Huangshan’ (the Yellow Mountains) and ‘Huashan’ (not the Yellow Mountains) were in fact different places, we had a problem. Rosa and Theo were not bothered or particularly keen on doing some dangerous and highly dodgy plank walk (seriously some of the reviews were a bit on the edge), but it had been my dream since we set off to do this, so between us we did some ninja level logistics and figured out a solution.

We needed two days to go to the Yellow Mountains and then with some consistent travelling (and some very fast trains) could we manage a day trip to Mount Huashan? Would they at least come with me to the deadliest plank walk if we could make it work?

Our timings for going through Russia were set in stone, and determined by when the trains went so, theoretically, we did have time…and both places were sort of on the way back to Urumqi and the border with Kazakhstan.

Neither Theo or Rosa would commit to doing the plank walk with me… but I could tell both of them were now considering it : )

After figuring out the route we had finally booked the train tickets and found a hostel in Huashan town. We were all set.

When we got down off the Yellow Mountains, our hotel man came and collected us and we made our way to Huangshan city where we were staying the night to be near the train station for the morning.

Our next journey started at 8.00 a.m. and we were expecting to arrive at our hostel around 9.00 o’clock that night.

Another day on a high speed Chinese train… time to look through all my squizillions of photos from Huangshan, to read and do some writing, to study a little Mandarin – we knew how to do this.

As our journey neared its end we checked to see how close to Xi’an we were and over the tannoy we heard the next stop announced: ‘Huashan Bei’, wasn’t that our final destination, the one we were going to be coming back to in an hour and a half’s time?

The map confirmed it – this was actually our stop. We were about to gain back a fabulous two and a half hours.

Time to eat, time to shower… utter luxury.

When we came out of the train station the thought occurred to us that we might be able to get a refund on our tickets.

Worth a try.

I headed into the station and over to the ticket desk. It took about ten minutes to explain what I wanted, and then miraculously I had 131¥ (£14.50) back in my hand.

That would pay for our taxi, our dinner and some snacks!

As we walked into the hostel we were met by NiNi. She spoke English with a thick accent but she clearly knew the language really well.

She knew exactly why we were here, and we had maps and a clear route through the mountain planned for the next day before we’d even signed in. She didn’t mess around our Nini.

She let us know she would be happy to take us to the ticket office early tomorrow morning, where we could buy entrance tickets for the mountain and for the tourist bus to take us up to the West Cable Way.

She told us it was expensive, but it was the only way we were going to make it around the mountain in one day.

She also told us the cableway was twenty minutes long.

I don’t think that quite registered at the time… We were hungry and tired after the journey, so we just nodded.

The restaurant we chose was next door. Rosa deciphered the menu and did the ordering and I went off to get some money out of a hole in the wall… the food was delicious, and as we were eating it we realised it was our last sitdown meal in China.

We made promises to each other to seek out real Chinese food when we got back to England, and if we couldn’t find it, to learn to cook it – it was just so good!

Afterwards, Rosa and I went to look at hats, we had managed to get a little sunburned in the thin air of Huangshan mountain – Huashan was even higher so better get us some hats.

When we got back inside the hostel, Nini showed us where we could leave our bags in the morning, and said if we texted her, she would come and collect us from the entranceway when we came down off the mountain…with all our luggage, so we could make the train on time.

I absolutely cannot imagine any guesthouse owner in the UK offering to hoik three really heavy rucksacks, a guitar AND Suitcase into their cars, then come and collect us and drive us the twenty minutes to the local station…unbelievable, really!

As we were about to go to sleep, the subject of the deadliest walkway came up again. I was doing it, and Rosa and Theo were now seriously thinking about it.

You can lead the horses to water, and sometimes they do drink : )

We had our tickets in our hands by 7.30 and we were at the entrance to the Westgate Cableway by 8.30. There were plenty of steps to climb before we reached the cable car, a chance to warm up the weary leg muscles in preparation for the day ahead : )

As we got to the top of the steps we could see this cable car was different, instead of one large car there were lots of little ones and you had to jump on as they swung round the corner. Six people in each one.

It was fun leaping in – the six of us, smiling at each other, and then we set off.

Fast.

The ‘up’ was swift and relentless.

Mercifully I can count the number of times I have been that scared on the fingers of one hand…a hand that was now clutching my bag like it was a parachute…but it wasn’t.

If we dropped it wouldn’t even be a quick end we were so high up…

We would reach the top of a mountain, shoot along over the pillar holding the cables aloft, wobble precariously, and then the next even higher mountain and even deeper valley, would open up before us.

Four times that happened. Four times!

By the time we reached the last swing out over – nothing, Rosa and I were clutching each other’s hands. We were so high we couldn’t see the cars moving any more. Theo was chatting away like this was a stroll down Shepton Mallet High Street…what was his problem with the deadliest plank walk?! You were strapped on during that, not free swinging over thousands and thousands of feet of sheer drop…

I couldn’t remember ever having been so glad to see solid ground but the ‘ride’ wasn’t over yet…we had to make sure we got off before the bloody thing shot off the end and went back down again.

There was a slight air of panic as we rounded the bend in the exit tunnel but all six of us made it out okay…

‘We are NOT going back that way!’

The plan Nini had devised for us was to go back down the short cableway anyway but I wanted it stated FOR THE RECORD!

Theo was struggling to understand why we were scared…funny the different things that terrify the living daylights out of a person.

This mountain was very different. We came out of the cable car into a beautiful Temple courtyard …of course, this was a sacred mountain.

There were red ribbons everywhere so I bought two, one for the world and everyone and everything we loved in it …and one for the three of us. I wrote on the first one and went inside the temple to light some incense and say ‘hi’ to the gods of this place.

I sat for a while and then something in the eyes of the statue ahead of me reminded me of my mum and I started to cry, it’s hard growing up without a mum and I often think about how that was for Ellie, so much younger than me when she died …just writing it brings tears into my eyes.

I went back outside and lovingly tied the red ribbon to the railing. Ellie and I weren’t the only ones who’d grown up without a mum…

Theo and Rosa had bought some  pancake type things and were sitting munching them…the deadliest plank walk was waiting for us.

The views at the top of this mountain were entirely different, much steeper and deeper, we felt much more like we were on top of a specific mountain, rather than a whole bunch all together – which made sense : ) …that was exactly what was going on.

There were fewer birds and we didn’t see a squirrel but the mountain was still beautiful – the addition of the temples and the clear sense of being ‘on top of the world’ gave it a majesty of its own.

…and there were plenty of steps.

We spent quite a bit of time comparing various pains in parts of our legs as we climbed. Some people actually walk all the way up the mountain and then do the plank walk…

Maybe if I ever came back I’d  do that, I sure as hell wouldn’t be going up in that cable car.

Nearly each viewing point had a feature – a view through the blossom  trees of a temple on the top of the peak next to us, a pine tree clinging impossibly to the side of the mountain. A railing with so many ribbons on it that you couldn’t see the railing at all…we loved the red ribbons fluttering everywhere.

I had decided to keep ours with us until we got to the end of our walk. It could come with us on the deadliest plank walk.

A funny little thought popped into my head as I decided that…’I do hope it’s not lame after all this hype.’

Well I’d find out soon enough – we’d arrived at the back of the queue.

It moved slowly…we had time to read all the notice boards and flowery words about the significance of the mountain, twice.

Whenever I’m in a long queue I set ‘a goal’ …when I reach that lamp post, yellow sign, piece of railing, I will…

…what?  

Know that I’m a bit closer!

A bit lame but true. In this case the staircase was the promised land. Once we were on that we were going places…

It took us over an hour to reach the staircase – and another thirty minutes to get half way up. We’d made it to the queue in good time so there was no worry about how long this was taking, but it was crunch time…were we all doing it?

The bottom line turned out to be a ‘yes’ for all three of us, ‘we’re here now’ being the main piece of motivation for Theo with a touch more positivity from Rosa, I was still full steam ahead. If I could survive the cable car, this was nothing (…well maybe not nothing).

As we stepped up off the last step towards the man behind the ticket desk Theo noticed a sign indicating a number of do’s and don’ts for the plank walk.

‘What do you think that means?’ he said, curiosity the main tone in his voice.

There were lots of points about safe and respectful behaviour, queuing etiquette and opening times but the point Theo was referring to seemed to indicate there might be an age limit.

The language was a bit flowery and could be seen as advisory rather than an actual limit. If it was an actual limit it was a bit of a crap place to put the sign…

We walked forwards delighted to be at the front of the queue even if we were wondering what the age notice was about…?

The man behind the counter pointed at our shoes and shook his finger and gestured for us to get out of the way.

What?

There was nothing on any sign about footwear.

We were not going anywhere.

I used iTranslate to ask him what he meant but for some reason he wouldn’t engage with me at all and just kept waving that finger aggressively at us and pointing for us to get out of the way.

It was a little over the top to say I’d come all the way to China for this, but standing there after queuing for nearly two hours and being told I had the wrong shoes on – I wasn’t happy.

In the China I knew there would be someone whose job it was to give out appropriate footwear to anyone who came in the wrong shoes and store the customers ‘sandals’ until they came back…this didn’t make sense.

After another finger wave with no eye contact and a dismissive little hand flick I was ready to do battle – I wasn’t going down without a fight.

I tried again to make him read my translation but he wouldn’t – and I knew he could read because he was filling in forms for each person going on the plank walk…why was he treating us like this?

Maybe we had finally met the one jobsworth in the whole of China.

Time to find someone else. The second man looked at our good quality sandals and nodded, the footwear was fine, he said something to Mr Finger Waggy who took mine and Rosa’s passports of me – he looked carefully at Rosa’s and then mine… and this time the finger wagging reached another level. If I’d been ready to slap his finger away before, now I wanted to bite it off!

It was official, I couldn’t go on the plank walk based on my age.

Wow…it was the first time since I was a teenager that I’d been limited in what I wanted to do by an arbitrary age limit. Full circle I thought as I sat heavily on one of the stone steps leading to the promised land.

I was angry …and I was gutted… I sat there knowing that there was nothing I could do, the more reasonable man had simply shrugged. There was no ‘appealing to reason’ or ‘signing a waiver’ …they were simply not going to let me do it.

Theo was in all honesty a bit relieved. If they weren’t letting me on he knew his day ‘out on the edge’ was over.

…and Rosa? She didn’t know what to do, it looked like in all the confusion she could go on if she wanted to – but did she actually want to?!

We retreated, me to lick my wounds, Theo to thank his lucky stars and Rosa …well Rosa needed to make a decision.

She had been going on because I was, we all were – and now we all weren’t.

We did a pretty good job of taking care of each other in those moments – me in my disappointment and Rosa in her uncertainty. Theo loving us both.

This was Rosa coming out into the light and deciding – it would have been easier for all of us to walk away but when she really thought about it, she did want to do the deadliest plank walk. Partly for the team and partly to test her courage…

Decision made, and Theo and Rosa went back to the queue where our resident jobsworth decided the people he was processing were the last until after lunch. He deliberately refused to allow Rosa through.

Man, was he going to get a bad review on trip advisor!

Theo had seen a booth where you could take your photo and look like you are on the plank walk.

I needed that bit of pointless defiance as processing time.

I needed to let go of doing it for myself enough that I could enjoy and support Rosa in her bravery.

It wasn’t hard actually – and I think I will remember that feeling for the rest of my life…being able to hold my own disappointment and cheer her on, loving her fully as she did it, by herself.

Afterwards she said it was a bit like when she leaves home – having the courage to go out and reach for something by herself and for herself…it almost had me uttering the ‘everything happens for a reason’ phrase but no…not yet.

There was some accountability to be had here.

You can’t go round charging all 55 to 59 year olds a full price entrance fee to get up into the mountain and then tell us we’re too old to go on the plank walk. You can’t have it both ways. Charge us full price and let us risk certain death, or give us a discount and tell us we can’t.

I wasn’t having it.

Someone was going to get a very strongly worded letter.

I knew I was fit, I knew I would have loved the thrill of it, and fear?! That was still swinging away out on the cable car.

It’s not like I was going to skip along the planks jumping up and down and singing ‘We are the Champions’ – I knew I would treat it with a healthy respect but I was also determined – this had been for me, to remind me of what I could do as a 58 year old woman.

Yep, a VERY strongly worded letter.

I focused on Rosa for the next couple of hours, she was going to be first through because of the mean stunt the ticket man had pulled. That was at least something. She could go at her own pace in both directions, I could get some great photos and she would be finished first.

As she stood in the queue she had the idea of giving me her lanyard. They’d signed her in now – why not?

It was wonderful that she was willing to give up doing it for me but we both had a suspicion that that bloody irritating finger would find its way out on to the plank walk and neither of us would get to do it…

It was wonderful watching her head out – first to go out along the ledge leading to the plank…and really sad. I’d love us to have been taking photos of each other out there. I loved how brave she was being… and never mind FOMO – I was actually missing out. I was sad Theo hadn’t tested his courage on the plank and found he could do it too – it would have been a fabulous last hurrah for all of us on our trip.

The red ribbon went with Rosa, we used it to tie her phone to her shirt so her phone was safe, and our ribbon had done the crazy courageous walk.

She took way more photos than she would have done if I’d been there and I could see our girl, stronger from this trip, more confident for learning some Mandarin and having started talking to people…bravely getting a job in Australia, she was the one leaving home in September and I knew she was ready.

Me, what did I have?

A fake photo and a desire for vengeance…I was going to take Waggy Finger down!

As we watched the endless people go round the plank walk before Rosa could come back Theo came over to me and asked if I might have a word with the man on the ticket desk…Theo thought he looked pretty upset.

He was upset!!!!

I let that sink in while steam came out of my ears…’he’s upset, He’s Upset!’ I muttered under my breath.

As I watched Rosa stick her leg out over the edge, just as ‘dude’ had done all those months ago I softened very slightly, ‘maybe he’d been having a bad day!’ I hadn’t exactly been the still voice of calm as I tried to understand what was wrong with our shoes – maybe this was partly my fault too…

The less compassionate part of me wasn’t having any of it.

‘He Hasn’t Travelled Half Way Round The World…’ ‘…AND  be was – Very Dismissive!’

My inner voice wasn’t shouting exactly – more emphasising every word, like I wasn’t quite getting it.

Sigh!

I was even arguing with myself now.

Rosa arrived back full of the experience, happy and excited about it, it had been way more scary on the way back when she’d actually taken her time over it. She told us a little and then pointed out that we needed to get going  We still had a long walk to the Northern Cable Way.

We got to the top of the stairs and a man carrying an impossibly heavy load broke my steely resolve. We needed to wait for him to make it up the stairs which gave the compassionate me just long enough to go and find Mr Waggy Finger.

i didn’t know what I’d do in that moment but I guess the part of me that would rather reach for connection than live in the self righteous indignation won out. I smiled at him. I don’t think he noticed at first so I smiled again…

He actually had the good grace to look surprised and half smiled back…maybe he’d be a bit nicer to the next person who made it to the top of the queue to discover ‘you had to pay, but you couldn’t play!’

I shed a few tears on that walk down the mountain, I really was disappointed, Aren’t the Buddhists regularly telling us not to be attached – that that ‘wanting’ is what leads to suffering. I got the point about the suffering but I liked wanting things and being excited about stuff …maybe that’s what enlightenment actually was…really wanting to the deadliest plank walk and then being okay when they said you were too old to do it!

Was not being able to walk around a part of a mountain going to define my trip? No, not at all. Did I feel too old? No, not at all.

Did everything happen for a reason? I would need to sit with that one…

When Rosa and I talked about it as the path levelled out and talking became easier – we agreed that the cable car had been way deadlier than the plank walk, although the plank walk had given it a run for its money…

We tied our ribbon to a beautiful tree and watched it flutter in the wind with the mountain all around, and then we went down the much shorter cable car.

I texted Nini as we got to the bottom and her husband met us at the entrance. He refused all money for the help and was even a little embarrassed that we were thanking him.

We got to the station with an hour to spare and I had the bright idea to see if it was possible to change our tickets to an earlier train.

…and yes once again China Rail came through, no extra charge.

We were going to arrive in Xi’an nearly an hour early.

We had a similar problem as two nights before finding our hotel on DiDi – we made our best guess and our slightly less careful taxi driver, who was definitely in a hurry dropped us exactly where we’d put the pin. In some kind of industrial estate that seemed to be packing up for the night. He pointed vaguely in the direction of the main road and shot off.

Not to worry, we were early. It was still light, and so leaving Suitcase and Theo in charge of the rest of the luggage Rosa and I set off to find the hotel.

Rosa could speak Mandarin and I had the map.

We went into the first building that looked open and showed the hotel address to the man at the counter. Another worker in the building came over and seemed to indicate he knew where it was and beckoned for us to follow him.

Five minutes later we were walking into a hotel lobby, the kind man having gone back to his job – I could seriously get used to being treated like this and after Mr Finger Waggy I was pleased to have some kindness back in the world.

We walked up to the counter and got out our passports, this place looked really nice.

…but it wasn’t our hotel.

They didn’t know where it was either.

We did a ‘Maps.me’ ‘Google Maps’ ‘Booking.com’ triangulation of where Hotel Junyi might be and went back to get Theo.

We all went this time – going and coming back across the big main road would take a while – we might as well go together.

Hmmm. The hotel wasn’t where our best guess suggested either. Time to get out the big guns.

Ask a local.

There were a bunch of security guards gathered in a little booth at the entrance to some sort of car park and they took it on, taking it in turns to look at the address on my phone and offer advice. Eventually consensus was reached and one of their number broke away from the group and indicated he knew where to go.

It was getting dark by this point and a woman with a scooter offered to put Suitcase on the front and take it there…Suitcase wasn’t having any of it so we thanked her and carried on following the security guard.

It was a good ten minute walk and we were just beginning to wish we’d ordered another taxi when we saw the lights of a hotel sign ahead.

Relief…we thanked the security guard but he was a ‘see things through’ kind of guy and came into the hotel lobby with us.

There was a lovely woman sat behind the desk, radiating efficiency and warmth, rising gracefully to meet us as we walked in with our huge amount of luggage.

I passed her our passports and she tapped away.

There was a problem.

What, was the problem?

They hadn’t received a booking from booking.com, and as we got further in to what had happened, it was clear neither she nor the owner had ever heard of booking.com. They weren’t even a hotel that is designated to take tourists, it didn’t make sense on any level.

The absolutely lovely receptionist could not understand why there was no phone number I could ring so we could sort this out…the virtual world eh?

When it goes wrong you are suddenly very much on your own.

We had two options – go back to the train station and do our best to sleep there or try and book a different hotel online – I wasn’t feeling like trying that at this point in time and the only other hotels I’d found on the app were expensive and a long way from the station.

Not great options.

During all this confusion our security guard had stuck with us, offering words of encouragement and asking questions, and a third man had arrived, who was part of the hotel team, possibly the owner …and the three of them decided there was only one thing for it!

Call the police.

Call the police? Why?

They thought it was the best way to find us a hotel… What?

I didn’t get it, I explained that in the UK we would NEVER call the police to try and help foreigners find a hotel.

Our receptionist looked really surprised. ‘We call the police for anything here.’ she said.

It was a better solution than  we were coming up with so the police were called…and within a minute were on their way.

During all this that fabulous receptionist noticed we were hungry and ordered take away food – she paid with a card and I gave her the cash. We were starting to be quite a good team her and I.

The police arrived before the food and the security guard, seeing we were in safe hands, said his goodbyes and went back to his job, nice guy!

The younger officer, in the regulation blue uniform policemen wear all over the world, asked all the same questions the receptionist had about booking.com – What was the phone number for customer service? Who made the booking for you? Do you have a name?

They all had apps on their phones but the idea that I couldn’t get hold of someone to sort this out for me was pretty shocking to everyone involved.

I had contacted booking.coms ‘customer service online hotline’ and been hugely reassured by their commitment to get back to me within twenty four hours. The receptionist and the policeman had a point!

I asked the police if there was any chance we could stay here, and they said the same thing our receptionist had, there was a clearance this hotel hadn’t been given, or hadn’t applied for, to have foreign tourists staying.

There really was only one solution, the police wouldn’t be happy with us bedding down in the train station for the night, and to be honest neither would we. Another hotel would have to be found.

Our food arrived at this point and everyone insisted that we eat and the police got on with looking for a hotel for us.

Solving crime in the thrumming metropolis that is Xi’an, a city larger than London, was clearly in hand! Two of China’s finest were booking hotels for three tourists. It was bizarre…and really flippin’ helpful!

They were aiming a bit high to start with, we were not going to spend £100 on a hotel…not even to make China’s police force happy.

I went back online myself after a couple of his suggestions and found one that hadn’t been available when I’d booked Junyi Hotel.

It was called Thank U, how appropriate I thought, and gave the phone number to Yang Xhao, yep we were on full name terms by this point.

He rang it and confirmed that it could take tourists – it had the added benefit of being much closer to the station and a bit cheaper than this hotel, but Yang Xhao didn’t really like it…

He wanted us to stay in a more ‘bustling’ hotel…he didn’t think much of the one we’d chosen, it was pretty cheap and in the ‘wrong’ part of town – but he relented in the end.

The other policeman who had said very little, older and wearing a much more menacing black uniform, went outside to look for a taxi but there weren’t any, and so the police decided they’d take us to the Thank U themselves. The receptionist and I had a brief hug and we were on our way.

Suitcase selfishly took up the entire boot space so we had to pile all the rest of our luggage on top of ourselves in the back of the police car. 

They turned on the sirens as we pulled away… it was a VERY surreal end to the day.

It hadn’t turned out how I’d imagined in so many ways. Not being allowed to do the plank walk, but that not being the most terrifying experience of the day anyway. Rosa finding the courage to do it on her own and then this – arriving at our hotel in Xi’an in a police car with all the lights flashing and a theatrical blast of the deep horn siren as we pulled up.

It was fun piling out of the car on that busy road with all the street vendors staring at us as we parted with our friend Yang Xhou and his slightly more sinister side kick.

I had stuck with the two hours of backwards and forwards translations, stayed positive and friendly throughout the experience, realised after a few mouthfuls of food that we needed to have it later as a takeaway and crack on. I’d held out for a cheaper hotel …all on top of a pretty big disappointment – go me!

Before I fell asleep I thought about standing for an hour and twenty minutes on top of that mountain peak…slowly getting colder and colder as the wind whipped up the valley, my determination to watch every moment of Rosa’s bravery the same as when she’d been in a school play or doing a performance on the trapeze in circus club.

There was no wavering of my love for my daughter, my own disappointment wasn’t strong enough to knock that out…a battle I am so very glad love won.

I still wanted to do the deadliest plank walk and I am thinking it’s not very likely now …but I could have done it, and my ‘strongly worded letter’ might mean someone else will get to do it in the future.

We need to have each others backs us humans.

I remember a good friend insisting I watch the movie ‘Pay it Forward’ a while ago now – I had loved the ideas in that film. The generosity and kindness for no personal reward, just because of love…

I fell asleep holding onto the part of me that knows it is in our human nature to take care of each other and future generations.

…and in my dreams small armies of 58-year-olds danced barefoot down the plank walk, holding red ribbons and singing Queen songs while Mr Waggy Finger waved and cheered us on!