I took my first trip away from my luxurious accommodations this past wednesday. My trip was to an ancient mountaintop network of temples and monasteries called Wudan Shan.
On the advice of my Chinese handler, I went to the train station 4 hours early. Of course, this was in case there was a line and so I wouldn't miss out on getting a ticket. Of course, within 5 minutes of my taxi arriving at the train station, I had a ticket in hand, and about 4 hours to wait for my 11:03 PM overnight sleeper train to Wudan Shan.
The train station in Wuhan is fairly enormous. I ate some tasty McDonalds and found a restaurant that let me have a couple of beers in peace. The train station had several budget hotels, a place where you could play world of warcraft, and various other places. It was also loaded with people. It is by far the busiest train station I have been in. It was built fairly recently and had a huge digital monitor of either end of the giant station so you could watch commercials.
Below if my ticket. 195 RMB for a ride and a place to sleep.
The sleeper car was clean and pretty comfy. I had an older man who I think was afraid of foreigners because after about 15 minutes he joined his comrades in another compartment. I soon fell asleep and woke up 5 hours later.
It was around 5:30 AM when I arrived at Wudan Shan town. It was pitch black. As I set foot outside of the train station, I had several people offering me a ride to the mountain, but I refused because I knew they would probably either rob me or rip me off in some way.
I wandered down the rather dingy street near the train station and found a restaurant that was open. I had some hot steamed momo's and something that had egg in it but was drunk like soup. Basically I had three steamed pieces of bread filled with some tasty meat type filling and grool. It did however fill my belly.
One of the pesky guys with a car had followed me, to which I told him bye. Another man came up to me, but he offered to take me in his van full of people for 5 yuan. That is less than 1.00. I found out what a deal this was when I was dropped off at the mountain, as promised, 30 minutes later. His van was like a clown car stuffed full of people though.
I was at the mountain before it opened. It was pitch black. Some other people had also apparently took a play from my play book and also arrived early. We waited about 40 minutes for the gate to open.
There is a very big ticket selling building manned by paramilitary looking workers in black camo and red berets. It is a little weird, to say the least.
I paid my 240 RMB for an all day bus pass that would take me to all of the temples. Alot more expensive than my good hearted gypsy bus driver.
Up the mountain I drove. After about a half hour, I got out at the first significant stop, which is Purple Cloud Temple. I believe it is run by nuns. I also could be wrong about the name, because there are no maps in english and I frankly had to riddle out how to get to the hiking area. Here are some pictures of the purple cloud temple. I will add that it was very misty that day, visibility was bad and actually turned to hail. As you will see by later pictures, it was quite beautiful when I got up to the summit.
The interiors of the temples and the statutes therein cannot be photographed. I am not one to anger taoist deities or the taoist clergy, so unfortunately you will have to imaginate the interior. I do have a picture of one of the big dog statues guarding the gates.
There was also a cute pekinese dog that was wandering around the bus stop area. He was well fed and well mannered and I assume he has a happy life at the nunnery or monastery where he lives.
Inside the gate, there are fierce protector deities. Then the stairway is flanked by two enormous turtle statutes.
Inside the temple, there are two side temples. One of them was to a taoist deity called the maiden of the big dipper or the goddess of the big dipper. By my understanding, there is alot of astronomy involved in the taoist pantheon of deities. The goddess of the big dipper statute looks like a hindu goddess, complete with four arms and three faces on three sides of her head. I found that fascinating.
There is a reliquary or museum full of some artifacts I could not discipher, like old monks clothes, some funny looking roots, some texts, etc.
Inside the temple it looks like this. You can try and find the monk who was walking around while I was there. Needless to say, I did not harrass any of the clergy. The ones I did speak to were extremely friendly and seemed happy.
The above pictures is where incense and offerings are burned for the deities.
Spot the monk.
This was some sort of offering place where paper and incense are burned.
I will pick up my post about Wudan Shan with my walks to the shrine of LaoTsu, Denwa and the Golden Summit in another post. I just got back and am tired.
On the advice of my Chinese handler, I went to the train station 4 hours early. Of course, this was in case there was a line and so I wouldn't miss out on getting a ticket. Of course, within 5 minutes of my taxi arriving at the train station, I had a ticket in hand, and about 4 hours to wait for my 11:03 PM overnight sleeper train to Wudan Shan.
The train station in Wuhan is fairly enormous. I ate some tasty McDonalds and found a restaurant that let me have a couple of beers in peace. The train station had several budget hotels, a place where you could play world of warcraft, and various other places. It was also loaded with people. It is by far the busiest train station I have been in. It was built fairly recently and had a huge digital monitor of either end of the giant station so you could watch commercials.
Below if my ticket. 195 RMB for a ride and a place to sleep.
The sleeper car was clean and pretty comfy. I had an older man who I think was afraid of foreigners because after about 15 minutes he joined his comrades in another compartment. I soon fell asleep and woke up 5 hours later.
It was around 5:30 AM when I arrived at Wudan Shan town. It was pitch black. As I set foot outside of the train station, I had several people offering me a ride to the mountain, but I refused because I knew they would probably either rob me or rip me off in some way.
I wandered down the rather dingy street near the train station and found a restaurant that was open. I had some hot steamed momo's and something that had egg in it but was drunk like soup. Basically I had three steamed pieces of bread filled with some tasty meat type filling and grool. It did however fill my belly.
One of the pesky guys with a car had followed me, to which I told him bye. Another man came up to me, but he offered to take me in his van full of people for 5 yuan. That is less than 1.00. I found out what a deal this was when I was dropped off at the mountain, as promised, 30 minutes later. His van was like a clown car stuffed full of people though.
I was at the mountain before it opened. It was pitch black. Some other people had also apparently took a play from my play book and also arrived early. We waited about 40 minutes for the gate to open.
There is a very big ticket selling building manned by paramilitary looking workers in black camo and red berets. It is a little weird, to say the least.
I paid my 240 RMB for an all day bus pass that would take me to all of the temples. Alot more expensive than my good hearted gypsy bus driver.
Up the mountain I drove. After about a half hour, I got out at the first significant stop, which is Purple Cloud Temple. I believe it is run by nuns. I also could be wrong about the name, because there are no maps in english and I frankly had to riddle out how to get to the hiking area. Here are some pictures of the purple cloud temple. I will add that it was very misty that day, visibility was bad and actually turned to hail. As you will see by later pictures, it was quite beautiful when I got up to the summit.
The interiors of the temples and the statutes therein cannot be photographed. I am not one to anger taoist deities or the taoist clergy, so unfortunately you will have to imaginate the interior. I do have a picture of one of the big dog statues guarding the gates.
Inside the gate, there are fierce protector deities. Then the stairway is flanked by two enormous turtle statutes.
Inside the temple, there are two side temples. One of them was to a taoist deity called the maiden of the big dipper or the goddess of the big dipper. By my understanding, there is alot of astronomy involved in the taoist pantheon of deities. The goddess of the big dipper statute looks like a hindu goddess, complete with four arms and three faces on three sides of her head. I found that fascinating.
There is a reliquary or museum full of some artifacts I could not discipher, like old monks clothes, some funny looking roots, some texts, etc.
Inside the temple it looks like this. You can try and find the monk who was walking around while I was there. Needless to say, I did not harrass any of the clergy. The ones I did speak to were extremely friendly and seemed happy.
The above pictures is where incense and offerings are burned for the deities.
Spot the monk.
I will pick up my post about Wudan Shan with my walks to the shrine of LaoTsu, Denwa and the Golden Summit in another post. I just got back and am tired.
No comments:
Post a Comment