The next morning, we took a ride on the local version of a tuk-tuk and got to the central train station and hopped on to the first train to Hua Shan, one of the five sacred Taoist mountains in China. We jumped onto the first carriage which looked like it had room, and landed in the carriage-way.

Over the two-and-a-half-hour journey standing next to the toilet, we've come to realise that the space doubled as a smoking area and somehow five trolleys (three for food, one for drinks and one for magazines) managed to squeeze through between the crowds. For about one Euro, this was quite a ride - the squabbling guards and cooks pushing the trolleys were decidedly chirpier when they saw me snapping photos and a cook asked if I could take a photo of him, only to be told off by one of the guards that he was not “pretty enough.” I couldn’t help letting out an audible laugh as they moved along and went about their chores.

After a short bus ride and cable car trip up very steep hills, we hiked up to a hilltop inn just in time as darkness descended. In the morning before light, we hiked out with our torchlights and found a corner at a vantage point the earlier crowds had not staked out. The arrival of dawn was dramatic as the colours streamed out between the clouds - but it was not meant to be as the clouds overwhelmed the sunrise.

As we hiked along paths and climbed up hills assisted by iron chains (as some hills were over 70 to 80-degrees steep), we meandered through a couple of the five mountain peaks and seeing them again from afar, finally understood where the Chinese painters drew their inspirations from.
The majestic mountain ranges were over 2,000 metres high and golden locks adorned the iron chains as did red ropes, as visiting hikers locked-in their hopes and wishes for a safe return downhill and for good health. Locals seemed to run down the many steep and narrow steps, whilst others hiked up and down the mountains every day for 8-hours just to deliver the food and water to stock the kitchens uphill.