A Different Kind of Enlightenment
Trip Start
Mar 21, 2005
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Trip End
Ongoing
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Huangshan,
China
Sunday, July 17, 2005
I left the hostel early in the morning and began two days which can only be described as "reaching the emotional extremes." Throughout the journey I attempted to allow these emotions to flow over me, although several times I got caught up in them.
Here is the paradox...
For centuries, the Yellow Mountains have been the place where painters painted, meditators meditated, and people came to seek solace. Informational signs within the park boundaries extol the peace, quiet, and harmony of the mountains. Names such as Lotus Flower Peak, Emerald Valley, Flower Mirror Pool, Welcoming Pine, and West Sea Canyon conjure images of beauty and peace.
Now, in the peak of summer, tourists clog the mountains. This is no surprise: China has many people. What is a surprise is how the Chinese tourists related to the mountain. It was not like the signs said, nor the painters, nor the meditators, nor the past presidents who visited the site. The tourists yelled to each other across mountain valleys. The tour guides with headset microphones and speaker-sets shouted to their group.
01 Anhui Art
Despite many signs and ceaseless and dedicated trash collectors, the tourists continued to throw their trash into the forests. If it were just my impressions, I would simply say that we have "cultural differences," but the signs, meditators, and painters had already spoken. I left the three hour line for the tram behind and headed for the thousands of steps to the Yellow Sea, which describes the mountains when thick clouds form a "sea" below the yellow peaks. Despite the crowds, the heat, the endless sweating, I felt peaceful as I passed spires of rock graced with a few naturally-sculpted Yellow Mountain Pines(Pinus huangshaniensis). The mists created scenes like I had seen in the paintings.
Four hours later, I found the solace of the meditators and painters on some remote forested trails, as thunderstorms brewed in the distance. Along streams were bogs of sedges and lilies, full of butterflies, surrounded by maples, dogwoods, ashes, magnolias, rhododendrons, beech, and hydrangeas. Many of these species, such as the Yellow Mountain Pine, are endemic to the Yellow Mountains--a Yellow Sea of forests and mountains surrounded by endless clouds and lowlands. I smelled the pitch on my hands as I touched the rough rocks and pine bark.
Out of the forests rise the granite spires, only 123 million years old and formed during four igneous intrusions. Back then, the dinosaurs must have been wondering: "why the commotion?" as the mountains bubbled upwards.
Late in the afternoon, I reached a section of concrete trail plastered to sheer vertical rocks.
02 The Yellow Mountains Pine
As I stepped, the hollow sound of concrete reverberated underneath. The cracks in the cement sent uneasiness into my gut and I began to question my fear of heights and peace with dying. Or were those feelings simply those of sheer awe at the sights before me as the rocks turned yellow in the late-afternoon glow?For the night, I was crammed into a 20-person bunk room with bed bugs and sheets that hadn't been washed for a year. A room upgrade costed 2000 yuan. One hundred yuan was the most I'd spent in China for a bed, but, despite the rip-off room, we were all there for one thing: the sunrise.
Before dawn, hundreds of people, all sleep deprived from the bed bugs and cell phones going off at 2 a.m. headed like sheep to the nearby peaks. The tour guides ignored the silence the dawn presented to us and turned on their speakers. The whooping and hollering began. I question the sanity of the Chinese tourists.
By 9 am, after climbing the narrow steps to the top of the highest Yellow Mountain--Lotus Flower Peak (the symbol for cosmic harmony, enlightenment, and mental purity)--I lost the enchantment of the mountains spoiled in a flood of yelling tourists. I will put these moments up there with Times Square New Year's 1995 and Lollapalooza 1992. Only for those events, I had different expectations and up in the mountains, a wrong move by the crowds means almost certain death down a precipice. Cosmic harmony and enlightenment temporarily set aside, I took the gondola off the mountain as fast as I could. But I will still remember the mountain for its intense beauty and periodic solace.
Back down below the mountains, my next stop was Emerald Valley and the Julong Waterfalls, which flow from the Yellow Mountains. Here was a land of dense bamboo forests, jade pools, and sparkling waterfalls. In the clear pools, fish swam. Dippers flicked their white-feathered tails on the nearby rocks. Swallowtails stopped for a drink. The din of tourists was gone and replaced by the calming sounds of flowing water: "Calgon take me away."
In the evening, I returned to the hostel, full of conflicting emotions and opinions, but contented and feeling a need to return not only during less crowded times but also during another one of the Yellow Mountains' diverse seasons.
Comments
Very cool..
An informative description as I, too, would like to go to Mt. Huang but am worried about too many tourists.