Huang Shan - Yellow Mountains Trip

The past week has been National week here in China, which basically translates to an opportunity for travel to many people, including myself. So, using the recently purchased touring bikes bought specifically for this kind of time, Tom and I decided to undertake a trip to Huang Shan, the Yellow Mountains.
It turned out to be one of the most intense and tiring but ultimately rewarding weeks ever for me and Tom, with it consisting of virtually nil planning and things somehow coming together in our favor when all was uncertain. We originally planned to travel by bike all the way to the Yellow Mountains, but discovered while cycling that it was actually double the distance and time that we had anticipated and we didn't have the time to add another week onto our current one since we had classes the following week and a degree to be working for!
So we cycled about 100 miles south to the nice city of Tong Ling to catch a bus from there on to the Yellow Mountains.
This trip gave us a much bigger insight into the more average living situations for the chinese people and we saw a lot of smaller towns and villages which just made us appreciate where we live in Nanjing just so much more.
Here is a brief summary of each day:
Monday: Cycle about 100 miles 10am till 1am, sleep next to road (and mosquito lake...)
Tuesday: Cycle about 50 miles from 7am till about 2pm, sleep in hotel (very soundly)
Wednesday: Catch 7am bus to HuangShan for 2.5 hrs, hike 8 km to top, sleep in hotel lobby
Thursday: 5am for sunrise, hike back down, 8hrs of waiting and bus riding to back, sleep in hotel
Friday: Cycle back about 200km to Nanjing from 10am till 3am

Here is an unedited bit of footage of the trip, i didn't film any of the yellow mountains because the camera was hassle to take around.

Looking nice and fresh from Nanjing, the bikes "Mergatroid" and "Mutti"

The first nights sleep, the tent collapsed at about 3am so we slept on it,

Even just buying fruit brought a fairly big crowd in the smaller towns, who were amazed that we could speak (very bad) chinese

A village church literally out in the middle of nowhere, odd sight

Some kids we met who were on their way home

The only guy out of about 20 willing to get a picture with me, probably cos i smelt bad

The first 3km of the trek up the mountain, food and drink for the days on back

Lookin' fly on the mountain

What can i say....except 'you have legs!'

A view we found very much off the beaten track, absolutely stunning views from the rock side

Compulsory pose on a rock no' 1

Compulsory pose on a rock no2

This was a small jump i did to the thin rock, with a pretty gnarly drop either side, needless to say i was pretty psyched after that!

Sunset or the second coming?

This was very funny, since our plan to sleep on the mountain was foiled by the fact we didnt actually bring a sleeping bag and it was very cold, we asked to have half price for sleeping on a mattress that was stacked at the side, assuming they would drag them into a room, but the guard just dragged them onto the floor of the lobby and left us to it!

One of the hyped kids who didn't let us sleep much haha

simply.

Sunrise at the mountains at about 5am, really the best natural thing i have seen

I love the colours of this, just looks like a painting or stencil, was just before the sun started to appear, and when it did, people went absolutely crazy, there were more on the mountain at 5am then during the day! Well it looked like it...