Finally made it to the big 50

Finally made it to the big 50, gosh it's been a long time coming!! We took the 7am bus to Hua Shan about 2 hours from Xi'an. Up at 5.45am, didn't want to miss a moment of my big day...but with 2.5 hrs difference from Kathmandu it still felt like the middle of the night. Found our hotel and dropped off our bags, wandered up the street and were practically ushered into an eating place, after a bit of miming and laughing with this Chinese lady we received a  pot of tea and then 2 big bowls of a noodle soup with vege and egg, very good too.  To get up the sacred mountain you need a park entry then a bus ticket which takes you a few km up to the base. We decided to get the gondola from there, so queued for about 40 minutes. Once at the top there r five peaks that u can climb to so we did them all, up and down stairs for 5+ hours. Busy at times but the further we walked the less people. Really enjoyed it, some very steep ascents as you can see from the photos. Impressive mountain. Not exactly tranquil with 1000's of Chinese there as well but memorable. Queued to come down the gondola and finally got out to dinner at 8.30, the beer tasted great... Today we walked up the soldiers route, the most difficult, instead of taking the gondola. Just over two hours of steps, had a rest and lunch and then came down a different route, 6 km to the town,  steps & more steps. My legs can feel it.  Amazing amount of work in all the trails and access routes. Chains on all the steep bits. People buy padlocks to attach to the chains (we r not sure why, noone has explained that yet. ) There are hundreds of thousands of them all over the mountain. The statue of a resting man at the bottom of the road is huge (photo) and I think symbolises how everyone feels when they get down, tired! Over 35 degrees today, and still 25 at 10 pm. Not a swimming pool to be seen. Now back in Xi'an and trying to figure out how to get to the next place. We may be here a while... Thanks so much for all the birthday wishes and emails, they made my day. You are receiving this blog via South Korea, Enjoy!