the pilgrimage continues

Wednesday saw us at the Temple of the 8 Immortals. Taoist. Incense, shrines, steles. Trinkets sold discreetly. Peaceful! One of the cleanest public bathrooms in China. The painting was superb, favoring turquoise and purple. There was a shrine to DuMuo, a goddess /mother of many stars. A hold-over from even earlier star worship.
Afterward, my first "sport shopping" in China. Across the street from the temple was a colorful street market with stones and jewelry and perfume bottles and..well, you get the picture. I paid way too much for 3 chunks of coral and then, thru highly entertaining/stimulatin bargaining, got a green turquoise necklace (Melinda Vasquez, I hold you responsible..I'd just read your email). A visit to the botanical gardens rounded out the day. Odd to see all familiar pflowers and herbs..it could have been in Chico.
The next day we bussed to Hua Shan (Mt Hua), one of the 5 sacred Taoist mountains. After we secured a room, we wnet exploring. We went into the Jade Spring temple, beautiful, with the features we've grown accustomed to. And it really does have a spring running through it. But they are the crabbiest bunch of monks we've encountered yet. Not that I blame them...it's evening as I write this and there is disco music blaring from somewhere in the town and I know it's in their ears as insistently as it is in mine. On top of that, they have a train running at the other edge of their temple. It's electric (as are many modes of conveyance here), but it's still noisy.
We walked a little way up the hill to orient ourselves for tomorrow's long hike. Went as far as 5 Dragon Bridge, which has 5 dragon heads off one side and 5 dragon tails off the other. It spans a granite creek-bed with nice cold water in it. If not for the dragons, we could have been in one of the Feather Rivers. So we had a snooze in the sun. I have found in other travels that when I am in terrain that is familiar to me, I can easily just lie down for a nap..doesn't matter what the language is or what the political system, if I feel at home with the land.
Not much else to do, so we went exploring, finding our way to the east gate to the mountain park. On our way back, we took a dirt track through the fields and little farms that the locals use. When we spotted the red silk lanterns in front of a tidy clean place, we each thought "restaurant." And indeed it was. A few tables set amongst apricot trees and greens and flowers too. Such a clean kitchen (not always the case, I'm afraid), as I found out when, phrase book in hand (we just point to the mandarin characters, since our pronunciation of mandarin is as bad as their pronunciation of English) I went in and asked for tofu, eggs, vegetables, and noodles. We got them all as well as a bonus dish of greens cooked way way down with rice.. sort of a saag congee..brilliant. My best dining experience yet here. On our return to the hotel, Cal did what he often does here in the evening: watches Chinese TV with the sound off. As far as I can tell, it's just as stupid as US tv.

On Friday, we began hiking at about 7 am. By 3, we arrived at the night's lodging. That's 8 hours straight up! The place was spendy and there was music blaring from it, but we were absolutely exhausted by the climb and ready to call it home for the night.
And what a climb! 6 kilometers to the top of North Peak. The first 4k followed the stream we'd soaked our feet in the day before. Granite and familiar plants abound:wild grape, lilac, mugwort, mock orange. Red-billed magpies, crows, and little copper-colored lizards. Also, a couple of hermits caves carved from the living rock. They have red doors. One had a little flat peach orchard in front of it. Others have hand-and-toe-holds chipped from the granite. No hermits here anymore, unless you count the Taoist monk sitting in the morning sun, tea in hand, studying, at a way-side shrine.
Our first companions on the trail were 3 porters carrying enormous loads--1 had a basket on his back with 4 cases of beer in it, another, older, had a pole across his shoulders with 4 cases of plastic water bottles on each end. We decided they were Taoist masters disguised as lowly porters. The one with the beer played a beautiful tume on his harmonica as he climbed a steep part and the old one smoked his long pipe on the steepest, narrowest stretch.
The last 2k are..ahem..strenuous! The last k is way scary...steep narrow steps carved into the rock with barely enough room for your foot sideways, chains (like on Half-Dome in Yosemite) for hand holds..a real perineum-clencher. I followed the old porter's pipe smoke and somehow felt protected. At the top of North peak, the harmonica player, basket of beer still firmly in place, entertained a hoard of tourists by singing a classical melody...beautifully.
Magnificent views wherever we looked.
North Peak over-run with tourists after having the trails almost to ourselves. And then, ahead of us: Dragon Ridge (variously called black, green, or blue)--a "ladder" cut into an impossibly sharp ridge leading to the higher peaks. Somehow I had thought we were done with the hard part..HA! We made it, but our legs were giving out and our rests getting longer and longer. Since we were travelling mapless, we had no idea where we might be. So, as we were nearing west peak, we came to Zhenyue Palace (also known as Jade Well), and were beyond thrilled. It is evidently a shrine as well as a hostel, with 2 monks in residence and a hermit cave across the courtyard from the entrance. We had our afternoon tea and a little meal and a rest. The blaring music? Well, it was too loud, but seemed to be, if not sacred, at least classical. There were 4 shrine rooms and 2 of them appear to be inhabited by female deities. Those shrines had food offerings in them. One of the shrine rooms is in the cave that once offered a quiet and secluded place for a hermit to cultivate the Tao. Now the monks are shrine-keepers and have duties. The old monk here smokes cigarettes and tends the little garden lots and is in charge of the drying of the herbs. The young one is cute and affable and cooks and hauls water and opens the shrine rooms for visitors.
Rested enough to tackle more stone stairs, I left Cal sitting in the sun and set off for West Peak. Along the trail were wild rose, camphor trees, and big old gnarly pines. There are markers by the biggest ones,,,the one outside the window of our room is said to be 1000 years old. West Peak is pretty barren, so the first chakra (the survival chakra) was in constant protest. But the views! So dramatic..so sheer..so bottomless! The granite is a warm yellow-tan and has deep vertical creases. Looking west, I could see more rugged mountains and dragon-y storm clouds. Also treated myself to a trot up to "Immortality Pill-Making Cauldrom". More spectacular views, lilac buds just open enough to smell and the trail to myself. The thunder I had heard intermittently was sounding more serious so I headed down.
We spent the evening watching lightning, listening to thunder, and feeling the rain roll in to patter the earth. Pretty cool to climb a Taoist mountain, find shelter in a shrine, and have a thunder storm to boot. Divine perfection at it's most recognizable.
We marvelled each step of the way at the things that have been hauled up here: heavy wooden tables and chairs, propane tanks, metal cauldrons, sacks of cement, not to mention the perishables. And every little noodle stand has a TV. Hua Shan: the sacred and the profane, the sublime and the ridiculous.
The trip back down? Stay tuned.
Sleep tight (I know I will)