These
two sets of photos upcoming are taken from the month I spent traveling
around China after my teaching contract was finished in 2005. I
traveled a ridiculous amount of miles, spending something like four full
days on a train or bus. I think I’m still worn out from it. Never
again… maybe...
The
first place I went was Mount Tai, which featured the path of eighteen
bends (seen as a faint white line above my tired right dog). It should
have been named: “Path of Quadricep Torture” as it was a stone staircase
that went straight up the mountain for about 6 km. My feet are happy
to have nothing beneath them but air for the moment...
After
Mount Tai, I continued performing my tourist duty and visited Beijing.
Pictured above is one of two iron lions guarding the entrance to the
Lama Temple, the best maintained temple I saw in China that summer, and I
saw many…
These
are two of the dragons in the Nine Dragon Screen located in Beihai Park
of Beijing. The surface of the screen is made of glazed tiles – just
in case you were wondering.
The
Gate of Heavenly Peace complete with a portrait of Mao Zedong. This
was the only place I visited where I had to undergo any sort of security
screening.
Due
to renovation work in preparation for the upcoming summer Olympics in
Beijing, much of the Forbidden Palace was covered in ugly scaffolding.
But, here is a portion of one of the outer walls sans scaffolding.
This is the Tiananmen Square. Unlike 1989, the only thing active now are the tourist dollars...
Along
with the Forbidden Palace, Tiananmen Square, and the Temple of Heaven, I
wouldn’t have been a good tourist if I didn’t visit the Great Wall, and
here it is.
I
spent an afternoon hiking about 10 km of the Wall – a crumbling,
authentic portion of the original Wall as you can see. If I tried I
could imagine messengers scurrying along this raised road, or armies
marching to defend a besieged point along its length. I also had to
imagine its end as no matter how far in either direction I could see in
the distance, all it did was wind through the hills and mountains
without stop. Certainly impressive.
After
Beijing’s 13 million people, I traveled to Inner Mongolia’s essentially
uninhabited grasslands and camped. For a couple days this was my and
my tent’s view. The peace and quiet was a nice contrast.
After
the grasslands, I traveled through Ningxia Province, staying for a
couple days, before continuing through the dry plains of Gansu province
to Mount Kongtong, pictured above. Sitting inside this little side
temple is a massive, multi-armed Buddhist deity maintained by a wrinkled
and kind female monk (nun? monkette? monkess?). Scattered around the
remainder of the mountain were numerous other temples and monasteries.
A
friend I made – or I should say, found me – in the small city of
Pingliang near Mount Kongtong. He showed me great kindness before I
continued on to the city of Xi’an.
A
melon seller and his storehouse on the streets of Xi’an. For one
Chinese dollar you could walk away with the fattest slice of watermelon
that dripped streams of juice as you buried your face in it.
A fortune teller on the streets of Xi’an.
Near
the city of Xi’an is Mount Hua, another of China’s great mountains that
is seemingly always shrouded in fog. Also near Xi’an is the Terracotta
Warriors, but I neglected my tourist duty and did not visit them. The
fashion in which tourists – domestic and foreign – are funneled through
China’s world famous attractions had begun to take its toll. The idea
of climbing a mountain was more appealing.
End of Part I. Part II is here.
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