The worst job in the world

Huang Shan - 1870m of stone steps. There is some heavy competition for worst job in the world over here; my vote is for this one. I'd love to be able to say that it's ok coz these guys look pretty fresh at the top of the mountain (yep - they carry stuff up, then load up again for the down leg)...but they don't. They look absolutely wrecked. Other contenders : Shanghai street sweeper (heavy pollution & you're really not going to make alot of difference); Rickshaw driver (depending on the Westerner you could be carrying more than one of those porters); overnight train toilet cleaner (yeah - ok, that'd probably win but I haven't actually seen someone do this job yet & I hope I never will).

Huang Shan is indeed spectacular when it's not covered entirely in cloud (most of the time apparently), but there is one problem which may be tricky to address. See those stone steps in the picture above? When you're trudging up or down those, you need to concentrate coz they get pretty steep in places...but the steps are covered in enormous snot balls, so looking at the steps makes you sick, but you can't look away as you might slip on one! Fortunately fatigue sets in pretty quickly which pushes any snot issues into second place.

oh..here's another pic to prove I did get up the mountain....


Off to Mongolia tonight!