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Trip Start
Oct 01, 2005
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117
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Trip End
Jul 21, 2007
Chuandixia, China
Sunday, April 22, 2007
The 1500 year old Buddhist temple is in the middle of a pine forest and has a wonderfully peaceful atmosphere. Some of the trees are over 1000 years old and their limbs must be supported by metal poles, the ornate temple buildings contain sculptures of Buddha and Boddhisattvas (wise beings who eschew enlightenment to help other people reach it) and the whole place is laced with the aroma of incense
Chuandixia alleyway
. We managed to catch a local bus to the next temple, 10km up the road and deeper into the forest: Tanzhe. It is even older than Jietai, built in the third century and also boasts a much bigger complex as it was added to by the Buddhist Tang, Liao, Ming and Qing dynasties. As always the structures are laid out on a north-south axis and you climb to different and more holy levels as you walk from one building to the next. The most holy and auspicious temple contains a massive marble altar where only monks who understand Buddhism to the deepest level are initiated. It was so quiet and peaceful, only the birdsong, wandering monks, the swaying of the old pines and incense in the air. We sat and had a leisurely pot noodle which the Chinese have radically improved from the English version and are available absolutely everywhere.
Our ultimate quarry was the fabled village of Chuandixia which lies 90km west of Beijing city and almost on the border with the Hubei province. We had a job convincing anyone to drive us further along the road, as it required us to backtrack a long way first, and then proceed another 70km into the sticks, but eventually one random chap who we flagged down agreed to the 150 yuan we were offering (10 quid) and we piled in. We drove for about two hours through terraced farmland and increasingly rugged hills and were dropped off at dusk before the village gate. We stepped out onto the cobbled street and after paying the entrance fee (the village is a Unesco world heritage listed site), walked around the corner, into the eery silence, and saw in the half-light, a cluster of buildings nestled into the narrow valley up one side of the hill. We understood that a few of the residents would put travellers up for the night if you asked nicely, and might even rustle up some local fare for you
Chuandixia doorway
. All the houses looked alike but we tiptoed into a couple of the rustic courtyards and sheepishly made the universal sign-language for sleeping, before being shown to a wooden platform bed with a pillow and thin duvet. We decided to try for a vantage point further up the hillside so ventured down one of the alleyways, lit by red lanterns. The place oozes old world charm remaining totally unchanged since dynastic times. The crumbling grey brick walls are plastered in faded red Communist posters from the cultural revolution in Chinese characters exhorting the comrades, "Proletariats of the world unite!", "Long Live Mao Zedong", and "Arm our minds with Mao Zedong thought!". As the path wound through the homes and up the hillside we were attracted by about the only English we had so far seen: a poster claiming 'highest cafe in the village'. And so we walked under the rooved entrance way and up the narrow passage. From the rooftop cafe we could just about see the towering peaks looking down from across the valley and after placing our bags on our 3 person platform, we sank a Tsing Tao beer along with some stir fried egg and tomato and a plate of surprisingly tasty deep fried, battered pepper leaves.
Feeling restless after our repast we snuck out of the home and back down the passage with the aid of the headtorch, only to bump into a fresh faced young student of Peking university. He relayed in broken English that his entire class were here to celebrate their graduation! We were enthusiastically whisked down some more lanes and into a small room full of 30, 22 year old students indulging in the ever popular KTV, which in laymans terms means video Karaoke. As we entered, everyones face lit up and a chorus of , "Nee Hao!!" (hello) rang out. Our new acquaintance Tian who seemed to be their leader, then explained to the group how he had come across the unlikely trio and we were then passed the mike and bidded to introduce ourselves, before, stone sober mind you, also asked to join in and sing a song of our choosing
Chuandixia from the mountain
. Of course being British, we demured and one was duly chosen for us. It was a Carpenters tune called 'Yesterday'. You know the one, "Every shingaling a ling, every wo wo wo wo, still shines" As you can imagine it's not really my key. All the fun of the the fare though and after listening to a few Chinese pop tunes warbled out, we made our excuses and exited stage left but not before being offered to join in lunch the next day with the amiable gathering and a free lift back to Beijing in their coach! What a good do!We roamed around the streets for a while dimly lit by strings of red lanterns, stopped at another villagers house for a beer and then poked our way towards our lodging and lay our weary heads.
Early the following morning we walked up the path leading up the mountain opposite and after a bit of route finding along the goat tracks managed to make it high onto a rocky ridge which afforded oustanding views of the tiny hamlet way down below. We could now clearly see that the whole place is comprised of maybe a hundred medieval rural buildings, and as we viewed the almond shaped cluster, we stopped for a while to breath in the crisp, fresh, unpolluted air. The terraced hills looked awesome and reminded us of the ink paintings of the classical Chinese painters. As the megaphone toting, flag wearing, Chinese tour groups from Beijing began to flood in, to erode the bucolic ambience of the place, we began to pick our way carefully down from the ridge.
After some more exploration of the villages nooks and crannies with the aid of daylight, we met up with our Chinese friends in the courtyard, around which they had all slept, and were served a delicious table full of veg and meat dishes before hopping onto their coach and back to Beijing.
It had been well worth the effort to reach Chuandixia and we were buzzing to have been lucky enough to have the chance to appreciate the unique flavour of the place which compared to the big city, spoke to us much more of a romantic, age old China.
