Mountains Near Lantian

Sunday was the Dragon Boat festival, and as a result I had a day off. Ariel, Yoyo and I went to Lantian for the day. Lantian is a village about an hour out of Xi'an, and it is famous for its jade - as a result, there are a dozen or two jade stores along the two main roads of the village. We went in a few, but I didn't buy anything; I'd very cleverly left the bulk of my money at home.

After that, we went to the nearby mountains, and getting there was almost as much of an adventure as climbing them. First we caught a van to the toll gate on the way there, and stopped before going through. It turns out Ariel's sister-in-law works at the toll gate there, and Ariel had her arrange to get the tickets for the mountain (it's some kind of national (or local) park or something). She also managed to get us a free ride most of the way to the mountain - she wasn't working at the time, but she talked to all her co-workers at the toll gate, and within quarter of an hour one of them called us over - someone in an SUV had room to spare for the three of us, and gave us a lift. As well as accomplishing all this, she's pretty, and single. I'll ask Ariel about her tomorrow.

It quickly became apparent that the journey would not be quick. Here's a photo illustrating the situation; bear in mind that this was taken after the traffic let up and we were actually able to move. It was worse further back.



It also shows off the lovely rock gorges we were driving through, which kinda made up for the slow journey.

The driver dropped us off some distance from the mountain we were headed to - he was going another way. How far is "some distance"? About this far:



We hired another van right there on the bridge that photo was taken from, though, so it wasn't like we had to walk that distance.

After finally getting to the start of the scenic walk, we, well, started walking. As far as mountain climbs go it's dead easy, not at all like Tibrogargan or Beerwah - there are steps the whole way up, even if they do get steep at some points. It's through very pleasant forest a lot of the way, too, and there are lots of rocks to climb around and make a fool of yourself on (not that I did any of that, you understand). Here's a shot of the path, with a very tiny Ariel somewhere in the middle of the photo:



This next photo is getting pretty close to the lookout. Someone else thought it was pretty enough to take a photo, and I thought his silhouette made a nice photo, so here's a photo of a photographer:



This is the only photo I took with the gondola in it. There's a gondola that goes all the way up to the first lookout, and we opted out of taking it up. By the time we went down again, it wasn't a case of deciding not to take the gondola - it was the lack of money between us that forced us to take the path back down again.



Finally, this is where the gondola leads! The first lookout. This isn't a great shot of the view, since it's in the wrong direction; there is a wall of mountain behind the lookout, and it's so much prettier that it looks in this photo. That's why I took the photo in that direction, instead of towards all the open space. What I really wanted was a panorama, but this was also the last photo my phone took before it died.



Yes, all these photos were taken on my phone. I forgot to take my camera, which is a far greater sin on a trip like this than some of the other times I've forgotten to take it. I have several good excuses, though! First, I didn't know we were going to be going up a mountain - I just knew we were going to some nearby village for the day. Compounding this was the fact that I had to get up at 7am on a Sunday in order to meet Ariel and Yoyo, so I wasn't thinking my best at the tie I was leaving the apartment; plus, I'd gone out with Alex the night before, and didn't get home until 4am. Three hours of sleep + 7am start + not knowing about the very pretty mountain = forgetting my camera (and money to buy pretty jade stuff). Maybe next time.