The road rose steadily as we headed out of Xi'an, with the cityscape replaced by more rural, mountainous scenery. The land looked dry, but fertile and the valleys were full of small to medium scale farmland with all manner of different vegetables and grains under cultivation. It was a good road and we made steady progress, with the views occasionally punctuated by long mountain tunnels.
The mood on the bus was good, with the group split pretty much 50/50 from those who had already been on board for a couple of weeks from Beijing (and therefore already in the rhythm) and those, like us, who had freshly joined in Xi'an. We just watch the scenery in the morning and then I joined a card school for a couple of hours in the afternoon.
The Wudang Shan area is heavily managed by the authorities and we had to leave the truck behind for the next couple of days at the base of the controlled area and join a tourist bus. This is ostensibly for environmental reasons, which makes a lot of sense, because there is a solitary tarmac road heading up the mountain and one can envisage it being grid-locked with cars. The tourist bus, wound it's way up through the lushly forested hillside and tea plantations which remind us of our time in southern India.
The road ran out at a small village, with a cluster of shops, hotels and restaurants and we had a couple of hours of daylight left to explore. Our hotel was back to basics again and rather dank after the luxury of Xi'an, but the clear mountain air more than made up for that. Just off the end of the road, we found a tunnel through the rock that ended at a dance-floor sized viewing platform that looks westwards over the valley, but surrounded by a horse-shoe shaped amphitheatre of jagged peaks. We stopped and watched the sun go down here and it was a truly beautiful spot, with only the occasional group of noisy locals coming in to spoil the peace.
Half an hour later, we realised why the platform was dance-floor shaped. A group of older Chinese people arrived with a babble of excitement. As the sun finally disappeared behind the mountain peaks extinguishing the light, the far wall was lit up with bulbs, giving the rock-face a turquoise and flame coloured hue. They set a ghetto-blaster down, switched on some traditional Chinese folk music and proceeded to tango gracefully around our viewing platform. We stood quietly in the shadows, hoping we wouldn't be asked to join in - this surely was one of those surreal experiences that makes travelling so memorable!
The Last Tango in Wudang
We rose bright and early the next day to make sure we got to enjoy our one full day in this place. Not only is it spectacularly beautiful, but it is the home of Tai Chi and one of the holies places for the Taoist religion and pilgrims come from all over China to climb to the summit. Our plan was to follow suit. The peak is at a little over 1,600 metres, which we didn't think sounded much, but because of the topography, the path rises up and down along steep concrete steps, so just when we thought we were making good progress, we would descend another 100 metres. It was also a hot, sunny day, but fortunately we were shaded most of the way by a dense canopy of trees, through which we occasionally saw amazing views. The real treat though was the the succession of atmospheric old Taoist temples we came across as we walked, with wonderfully evocative names such as The Purple Heaven Palace, The Palace of Supreme Harmony, The First, Second and Third Heavenly Gate and the Ancient Bronze Hall and Golden Palace at the Heavenly Pillar Peak. One of the fundamental principles of the Taoist religion, is that of humanity and nature co-existing harmoniously and this felt most appropriate here. We barely spotted any non-Chinese people and though they were noisy and boisterous at times, it sort of added to the spirit here.
The Golden Palace at the summit was rammed with pilgrims and, though the views we're magnificent, we didn't linger for too long before starting our descent. We took our time coming down as we kept spotting exotic birds swooping through the treetops, including a pair of mating Stone Chats (or so we believe following subsequent investigation), who kept us entertained with their dancing displays for 20 minutes.
We stopped for a pot of tea on the way down at a little path-side stall and fell into conversation with two guys from the north east of China, one of whom spoke very good English. One of the difficulties in China can be having any meaningful conversation with local people, so it was nice to have 15 minutes talking with them.
Wudang Shan was our most enjoyable stop in China so far and we were both enchanted by the place, even if the full day hiking had stretched us physically. It is difficult to do justice to the beauty and atmosphere of the place with photographs, but hopefully these will give some smal impression.
The path passes the Taoist Langmei Shrine
...and then a REALLY steep bit
Looking down from the summit onto the Ancient Bronze Hall
Andy all looks overwhelming. I meant to ask could you nip back a and grab a couple of terracotta warriors for the garden? Hope you aren't fleecing people in the card school - best wait until the last few days. Cheers, Chris
ReplyDeletejust when I thought it couldn't get any more amazing....!
ReplyDeleteI hope those stairs are keeping you fit
ReplyDelete