Our volunteer group organised a hiking trip @ Sheshan Mountain, which is right up our alley since we’re big fans of the outdoors and LOVE checking out the signs and sounds around Shanghai. Located about 30km southwest of Shanghai, it takes about an hour or so to get there, but the place is SO different from the city it’s hard to believe we’re not that far away. As we travelled, the scenery changed from a cityscape of highrise building upon highrise building to an expanse of lush green fields and not a highrise in sight. It’s a relief on the eyes, and very welcome.

We arrived and a bunch of us then caught cabs to Sheshan Mountain. The annoying thing is that the train station where we met at is RAMPANT with bloody annoying people spruiking their ‘cabs’ – which are actually fake cabs, or rather, private vehicles that are extremely dodgy. They either charge you the sky, or cart you off and probably try and take all your money. But even when we said “no”, they linger and HARASS YOU TO DEATH. Even when we hopped into the legit cab, they followed us insisting we take their car. It’s like they have no shame. Was pretty shocking to see and really pissed me off, not a good way to start the day.

But our (legit) cabbie was really nice and we got to Sheshan Mountain within 10 mins. They call it “mountain” and we were told it was “4-hour hike”, so we totally prepared in the morning – sunblock, huge bottle of water, snacks, comfy shoes, etc, etc. We learned our lesson because the last time we tried hiking in Australia, we got lost (without any water/food/etc) and didn’t manage to get out of the forest until the sun was going down – prett scary. However, it was actually more of a “walk up the hill” than hiking a mountain 😉 I guess it’s to cater to all people, but it was actually pretty easy for everyone 😛 Just strolled up the hill and that was it!

The only difficult part was that it was stinking hot. Summer’s here and it’s come with a vengeance. It was in the 30s (celcius) and the sun was beating down on us – yaaarrgh! Fortunately there were loads of trees but still, the heat was pretty crazy. It really exhausted us and by the time we got to the top, we were completely pooped. A gorgeous walk though – it was serene and beautiful with not many people at all.

After we got back down, we wanted to hike up the other mountain (there are 2 of ’em) but the front entrance was closed ‘cos of a MASSIVE church event. There are 2 churches on the mountain and in May, hundreds of thousands (!) of Chinese pilgrims come here. Then this dodgy guy said he could still show us how to get up, via a “hidden shortcut”. For the bargain price of 200?. Ahem. We were a bit dubious, but being stupid tourist, we bargained down to 140? and figured that was OK. And do you know what that got us? Well, he just walked us round the corner and into a side entrance!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SERIOUSLY!! If we weren’t so stupid and opened our eyes properly, we would’ve seen ALL the other people going round and walking 1 min to the side entrance. Royally pissed, we realised he was an idiot scammer. There were some security guards at that entrance, so he scarpered off really quickly. But then he snuck in after us and spent THE ENTIRE TIME harassing us for his money. One of the girls said, in Chinese, “Piss off, you cheat, or we’ll call the police” and so he left us girls alone, but focused on one of the guys and harassed and harassed him until the guy gave him some money to get rid of the moron. Personally, I’d have refused to give him the money and would’ve just called security on his ass – he really pissed me off but I guess he knew I would do something drastic, so he gave me a wide berth once he saw the look on my face when I looked at him.

Apart from those 2 instances of cheating idiots, it was a lovely afternoon and fun to treck up and down. We got some exercise and met some new people too. It was awesome to really get out and have some fresh air. Next week, we’re going on a cycling trip!

They’re building an amusement park out here – tres weird!

Closing in on Sheshan Mountain

At the entrance

Walking into the forest/mountain

Gorgeous, serene, bamboo trees

Hello tourist shot!

Me and my gf

On the other hill, there were 2 massive churches, this was the smaller one

The Observatory on the top

On the topmost part of Shanghai!

zzzzzzzzzzzonked