Day 378 - Disappointment and redemption at Changbai Shan National Park

Our morning started off with a bit more tension than intended, with Liv losing her cool (which hardly ever happens, especially compared to Adam) when the guy (we'll just call him dickhead) tried to sell us the bus tickets for twice the price. Not only does the Planet tell us the price, the bus station also told us, and Dickhead's friend at our hotel also confirmed the price - so how he thought we'd fall for it, we don't know! Anyway Liv laid into him in Chinese, which resulted in his smiley face quickly changing to the appearance of a child who'd just been spanked by his olds. This aside, we got onto the bus for the right price and we were soon on our way to Changbai Shan (Ever White Mountain) National Park.

After we arrived and had paid the normal astronomical entrance fee - including the overpriced 'environmental' buses: as far as we're concerned, China can take their environmental buses and beep beep beep. These buses were exactly the same as the bus we'd arrived on, only 7 times more expensive for a much shorter ride. Oh well, the extreme entrance costs shouldn't shock us anymore.

The disappointments continued when we got off the bus, and we had to walk up a road, and then on a ugly concrete path squished between mountains destroyed by deforestation and erosion - certainly not what we were expecting in China's biggest National Park. We passed a waterfall that had a lot of potential if you could ignore the landslides surrounding it, but the frozen ice at its base provided some interest.
The walk up to Heaven Lake (a big crater lake at the top of one of the peaks and the supposed highlight of the park) that straddles the border of China and North Korea got even less enjoyable when we hit what can only be described as a concrete massacre leading to the top - a huge, imposing, concrete tunnel that scarred the already crumbling mountainside as it snaked its way up.
When we finally made it to Heaven Lake we were at least rewarded with the beauty we'd been expected all morning. Despite the weather up there (in summer it rains here 25 days out of 30), we enjoyed walking along the blackened volcanic rock that lined the lake and sneaking glimpses of the mountains that surround the lake amongst the cloud stricken sky. We hung out here having some snacks and gazing into the crystal clear waters, until the chilly wind finally broke what was left of our spirits from the climb up.

The downward route was were the park managed to redeem itself as the we managed to migrate away from the dreary weather patterns above and found ourselves strolling through beautiful, green forest. We wandered along this route for the next 5 hours, listening to birds chirping, dodging armies of insects - some friendly, some risking a swat - and following the rippling river down the valley. Now this is more like what we wanted to see!!
Along the way we blatantly ignored the roped off sections of the pathway, which would have resulted in us wandering along the road. This turned out to be a good decision on our part, as all the roped off sections were safe and managed to deposit us at our desired destinations, as well as allowing as to have huge sections of the park all to our adlibing selves.

Some highlights along this 5 hour journey were coming across the hot springs, the small Heaven Lake, and the gorgeous Deep Green Pool and Waterfall. We ended our day walking through the Underground Forest - this forest was almost like back home, with the forest floor covered in ferns. At the forest we saw a waterfall smashing its way through a canyon and we eventually popped out at a gigantic crater now filled with towering trees.

The rest of the day was filled with the usual - food, internet, and packing. The travelling will continue tomorrow and we'll hopefully end up in Harbin!

Adlibing a part-beautiful, part-butchered park.