The holy mountain of China
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Vince
09 September 2015 | China, Peking
Day 7 - Wutaishan
Today we left Beijing to explore the rest of one the biggest countries in the world. Our destination was the scenic little town of Wutaishan, hidden deep in the mountains of China and famous for its 5 surrounding main peaks, one of which is the highest peak in Northern China (yes it is a beautiful place). One of the mountains, the Wutai Shan Mountain is one of the 4 holy Buddhist mountains in China which has resulted in many pilgrimages to the town. It is also famous for its enormous amounts of temples. Not sure how many temples there are, but there are definitely a lot. For some Chinese it’s a summer retreat to escape the extreme heat that is present in much of China because Wutaishan has a rather pleasant climate. We went to Wutaishan by bus, but to get there we had to take 2 metros starting from our little neighborhood in Beijing. To get into the metros, you had to go through security, something I had never seen before. But since the recent Thalis-almost-massacre, my perspective has changed. Some politicians here have said that it is impossible to execute. However, if you can do it in a country of 1.4 billion I would say you can do it in a country of 18 million. The six hour bus ride was pretty, many misty mountains, little streams and desolated Chinese towns. On the way we had a mandatory rest stop. We walked into some sort of fabric restaurant that kind of felt like a prison restaurant because of its plastic plates and big empty hall with seats pinned to the floor. Because most Chinese do not speak English and we wanted a noodle soup, we tried to translate the word noodle soup with hands and feet. I always like to create some confusion as well as some jokes incorporated in our efforts to get something done, so in a short time the whole restaurant was involved, trying to understand what we were saying. A Chinese guy who spoke very little English helped us and told us that we had time to eat because the bus would leave at 12.30 again. But just after we finally ordered the noodle soup, we saw that everyone was returning in the bus (12.05), the guy had meant that the whole bus would wait until we had finished our noodle soup. This was a little polite of everyone I would say (would definitely never happen in Holland), so we decided to take the bowl in the bus. After a detour through the bathroom because it might not have been totally normal to take the bowl and chopsticks, we arrived at the bus again, and off we went! In Wutaishan we stayed in the Holiness youth Hostel, owned by this very nice big Chinese guy. The hotel was very basic with sort of half-English quotes about luck and happiness on the walls. We suspected that these quotes were translated directly from Chinese because the structure and grammar didn’t look that solid. So after we settled in, we decided to go on this hike to the Nan Huan temple from where we would have a vista over the city and the mountains and (luckily) we were not disappointed. The view over the city and the misty mountains was amazing, with the sun as a red circle appearing and disappearing through and behind the clouds. In the temple, we met a family with their son guy who knew some English. His family was very helpful and together with their smartphones with translation apps we got some information about the temple, its habits and its symbolic meanings. After we had left the temple and went back into the city, we were in search for dinner and we found this little local restaurant. All the local restaurants in Wutaishan look the same with a poster with pictures of the dishes and their Chinese names. In Wutaishan as well as in Beijing there were very little foreign tourists, something that was surprising to me. Wutaishan is not very well-known so for that I could understand, during our whole stay we saw just one other Western family. Because of that we were some sort of attraction in town and in restaurants. Also in this restaurant, the whole crew stood around us to help us order and after a lot of confusion, fun and re-ordering we got our beer and tasty Chinese hotpot. As honored guests, we were not allowed to leave the restaurant without them taking a picture with us, so that we would always be remembered in this unknown local restaurant, amen!
Today we left Beijing to explore the rest of one the biggest countries in the world. Our destination was the scenic little town of Wutaishan, hidden deep in the mountains of China and famous for its 5 surrounding main peaks, one of which is the highest peak in Northern China (yes it is a beautiful place). One of the mountains, the Wutai Shan Mountain is one of the 4 holy Buddhist mountains in China which has resulted in many pilgrimages to the town. It is also famous for its enormous amounts of temples. Not sure how many temples there are, but there are definitely a lot. For some Chinese it’s a summer retreat to escape the extreme heat that is present in much of China because Wutaishan has a rather pleasant climate. We went to Wutaishan by bus, but to get there we had to take 2 metros starting from our little neighborhood in Beijing. To get into the metros, you had to go through security, something I had never seen before. But since the recent Thalis-almost-massacre, my perspective has changed. Some politicians here have said that it is impossible to execute. However, if you can do it in a country of 1.4 billion I would say you can do it in a country of 18 million. The six hour bus ride was pretty, many misty mountains, little streams and desolated Chinese towns. On the way we had a mandatory rest stop. We walked into some sort of fabric restaurant that kind of felt like a prison restaurant because of its plastic plates and big empty hall with seats pinned to the floor. Because most Chinese do not speak English and we wanted a noodle soup, we tried to translate the word noodle soup with hands and feet. I always like to create some confusion as well as some jokes incorporated in our efforts to get something done, so in a short time the whole restaurant was involved, trying to understand what we were saying. A Chinese guy who spoke very little English helped us and told us that we had time to eat because the bus would leave at 12.30 again. But just after we finally ordered the noodle soup, we saw that everyone was returning in the bus (12.05), the guy had meant that the whole bus would wait until we had finished our noodle soup. This was a little polite of everyone I would say (would definitely never happen in Holland), so we decided to take the bowl in the bus. After a detour through the bathroom because it might not have been totally normal to take the bowl and chopsticks, we arrived at the bus again, and off we went! In Wutaishan we stayed in the Holiness youth Hostel, owned by this very nice big Chinese guy. The hotel was very basic with sort of half-English quotes about luck and happiness on the walls. We suspected that these quotes were translated directly from Chinese because the structure and grammar didn’t look that solid. So after we settled in, we decided to go on this hike to the Nan Huan temple from where we would have a vista over the city and the mountains and (luckily) we were not disappointed. The view over the city and the misty mountains was amazing, with the sun as a red circle appearing and disappearing through and behind the clouds. In the temple, we met a family with their son guy who knew some English. His family was very helpful and together with their smartphones with translation apps we got some information about the temple, its habits and its symbolic meanings. After we had left the temple and went back into the city, we were in search for dinner and we found this little local restaurant. All the local restaurants in Wutaishan look the same with a poster with pictures of the dishes and their Chinese names. In Wutaishan as well as in Beijing there were very little foreign tourists, something that was surprising to me. Wutaishan is not very well-known so for that I could understand, during our whole stay we saw just one other Western family. Because of that we were some sort of attraction in town and in restaurants. Also in this restaurant, the whole crew stood around us to help us order and after a lot of confusion, fun and re-ordering we got our beer and tasty Chinese hotpot. As honored guests, we were not allowed to leave the restaurant without them taking a picture with us, so that we would always be remembered in this unknown local restaurant, amen!
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Je kunt nu ook Smileys gebruiken. Via de toolbar, toetsenbord of door eerst : te typen en dan een woord bijvoorbeeld :smiley
