The Lonely Mountain

The King of carven stone,

The lord of silver fountains

Shall come into his own!

Yesterday I embarked on a journey with my host brother Elton to Wudong Mountain. This week is National Week; the birth of China. Regarded much like we regard the 4th of July only that they need a whole week because they have to one up us I guess. I can't complain, its a full week off from classes.

The trip started with a death defying taxi ride to the train station. The driver was being especially radical even by Chinese standards. He would constantly swerve into the oncoming traffic lane to pass and seemingly play a game of chicken with the cars headed straight for us. Elton at one point asked him to not be in such a rush so he calmed down a bit. Whew.

At the train station we grabbed our seats and prepared for the seven hour trek across Hubei Province. The landscape was much like Wisconsin and I found myself reminiscing of home. Rolling hills and farmland stretching as far as one could see. The cows and oxen seemed so peaceful laying in the fields grazing. It was a good feeling.

Finally the train stopped in the middle of nowhere...which apparently was our stop. Literally, there was no train station we just jumped off the train and into a rock pile. I was a little concerned, but Elton assured me this is where we needed to be. We walked a ways and found a quaint little village at the base of the Mountain. The people in the village immediately turned on their foreigner radar and were on me like I was the prettiest girl at the dance. They all wanted me to sample their shitty food or buy their worthless trinkets (at 300% markup of course). We found a place to eat and soon were looking ahead at how to get up the first leg of the journey.

We were propositioned by a guy soon after to take a ride with him up the mountain. The shady dealer asked a high price but we figured if we took him up on his "taxi" service we could see more of the mountain so we went for it.

At the gates of the Mountain we got our tickets and took a bus up to where our hotel was. The place was pretty nice actually. I was expecting kind of a dumpy place that was without indoor plumbing from the look of the other places I'd seen on the way up. It was conveinently situated near some temples that we took a look at for the first night (it was evening when we arrived so we decided to save most of the exploring for the next day). While we were walking around we came to discover most things were closed so I grabbed a couple beers and we just wandered around a bit. We came to one of the closed temples and I noticed a trail off to the side. The trail wasn't especially prominent, but I thought maybe it was a little hiking trail or something. Now the fun part. As we were walking Elton asked me if I thought there were any snakes nearby. I said I didn't know, but no sooner did we end the topic did a little slithering friend come across my path. I stood still while Elton made little noises out of his mouth that I can only assume were trying to convey the idea of fear/disgust. After our little friend continued on his path we continued on ours. In the distance we saw an older dumpy looking building and thought maybe it was a landmark. We found nothing of interest near the shack which was situated on a shelf overlooking a valley. Paying no attention to the shack, we decided this spot might be a good place to come the next morning and watch the sunrise. As we were discussing this, a man wandered out of the shack seemingly upset. This piece of shit shack was this dude's house and apparently we were tresspassing. Whoops. We booked it as we weren't interested in getting pegged by his shotgun (I don't know if that's the Chinese style or not, but they watch a LOT of American movies so I wasn't taking any chances).

We found our way back to the hotel and sat outside. Elton was especially full of questions about America and my opinions on things in general. He asked me about how we party, relationship questions, sex, and political things like Taiwan (he assured me that no one was listening so I told him how Americans see the situation, it was a good talk).

The next morning we started our long trek up the mountain. The goal was to make it to the Golden Roof, the temple at the very top of the mountain. The scenery the whole way was breathtaking. I have never in my life encountered such sights. It was as if God himself decended from heaven with a chisel and some seed and created this whole exhibit solely for himself, but decided it was too precious a thing to keep only to his eyes. I can't even come to describe it with any clarity so I will post the pictures and let you decide what you think. Truth be told, its something that can only be understood by being there and photographs can do it no justice. There is just something about standing on even footing and looking across the ravine to a mountain blanketed in clouds that forces you to stand in awe of this product of nature.

The whole time I was leading the movements. I was wearing Elton out by dashing up the eternity of stairs. Every so often I'd hear him from below me begging for a rest. The stops were always a good opportunity for photo ops so it was a blessing. At some point we stopped for "dinner," and in some ways I wish we hadn't. We made premium prices for grass wrapped in a flour tortilla. Yuckers. Anyways, we choked that down and continued up. As we were climbing the 100 steps ladder we noticed a nice outcropping of rock that had plenty of shards from the mountain piling up near its base. Elton was wondering if we could take some as momentos of our trip, but was not feeling like jumping off the steps to the rock. I was being daredevilish so I did it (gaining even MORE looks from the hordes of Chinese that were now awake and climbing the mountain). I grabbed us a couple of the stones and we continued our long march to the top.

After hours of grueling climbing we finally made it to the Golden Roof and Heaven's Door. All the epic names attached to this place were well deserved, the best sights were to be seen at this altitude. I even had to delete some of the pictures I took earlier because the new scenery trumped that of previous snapshots. There was a beautiful flower that I wanted to nab if I could avert the eyes of the guards, but being the white devil that I am at this prominent vacation stop I couldn't find the opportunity. Instead what I found were hordes of Chinese asking to get their picture with me as if we were old friends. I obliged a few of them, but as soon as one started they all did, so I had to draw the line at some point.

We spent a lot of time enjoying the fruits of our labor and realized we were running short on time. Our train was leaving in a few hours and we would have to take the cable car down to catch a bus to catch a taxi to get the the city where we would get our train (since as you remember there is no train station at the place where we got dropped off). We would have to be fast to make it since this whole process had to be done seamlessly in two and a half hours. Luckily it went smoothly and we were able to get on our train right in time.

That's about all I have to say about it at the moment. I just got back a couple hours ago and my poor out-of-shape body is hating me. I'll leave you with pictures from an amazing start to National Week. I hope later in the week I will be able to go to Yellow Crane Tower and the zoo (pray for Pandas!).