White Tiger Path 3.0 - Our Basic Goodness - November 2019
Fall has flirted with being here to stay in Shanghai, and today certainly felt like it; life passes day by day just like everywhere else, but more adventures await me in China.
The big trip I took recently was an adventure in Shaanxi Province and the city of Xi’an to see the Terracotta Warriors and climb Mount Huashan. Xi’an use to be the capital in China during some of the dynastic years and is brimming with history and culture. I went with three other Canadians, two Germans, and two Americans.
In Xi’an there is a very large Muslim Chinese population (and fewer Han Chinese) and one of the most popular things is to go to the Muslim Night Market. We stayed very close to the city centre and also this Muslim Night Market and ventured out there to eat most of our dinners, wander around, getting lost in a different culture than we had all seen in all of Shanghai, Beijing, or Hangzhou; and also to haggle when buying souvenirs. They have these wonderful Chinese snacks that are traditionally called Ro Ja Moe, a very excellent snack. Essentially, slow roasted, ultra-tender meat (I think beef, but heard reports it could have been donkey), in these flakey buns. They pack a certain kick and for a couple CDN dollars I could get three and be satisfied until the next treat presented itself. Chief among these other tasty treats were the dumplings made right in front of you. They were fresh, they were hot, and they were good.
Religious buildings are very difficult to find in China (I’ve seen two Churches in Shanghai), but one of the things we went to see in Xi’an was an old Muslim garden and Mosque in the heart of the Muslim market. It was great to step into this oasis amid the crowds outside to find peace and reprieve for an hour or so.
Xi’an, similar to Quebec City, was originally a walled city before the expansion and development beyond those walls, and one of our activities available was to bike the entirety of the wall. This provided a really interesting perspective of the city: everything within the walls couldn’t have been taller than 5 stories, but just outside, there would be towers that seemed to reach as high 35 stories. Traditional buildings and markets could be found inside the wall and the modern feel we sometimes associate with China was found outside these walls. This makes for a wonderfully beautiful contrast stepping inside and outside of the gates.
In the middle of our trip to Xi’an, we took a 36-hour trip outside the city that really pushed me. We were picked up Wednesday by our driver Warren, around 8:30 am outside our Holiday Inn, and were driven a couple of hours to the Terracotta Warriors. The first hanger you walk into seems to have hundreds of these soldiers, all with unique faces staring straight ahead guarding the emperor they were buried with. It is quite a sight and becomes especially impressive, like the Great Wall, when you think about what went into creating all these soldiers and all the man hours spent detailing each individual face. After examining the warriors, we ate lunch and then returned to our hotel for a quick cat nap in preparation for the hike.
We arrived, that evening, after a short train trip, in the town of Huashan, fuelled up with some more Chinese hamburgers. We got ready for our hike up the mountain. We started our climb up around 9:30 pm. The Huashan Mountain hike is often claimed to be the most dangerous hike in the world and is one of the great five mountains in China. Before beginning our hike, we had to scan our fingerprints and have a photo taken of us…
It was a long climb up the mountain with some incredibly steep staircases to ascend but it was well lit up the whole way. True to my Chinese experiences so far, cell and other services were stellar the entire way up; in North America, I don’t think of the government as going to great lengths to ensure that every step of your journey is covered by full bars on your cell phone, but China does and that is so impressive and crazy to me. We reached the North peak around 12:30 am and hung out there for a while, chatting with some Chinese, and taking some photos and just recharging before we moved onto the Eastern Peak where we would be watching the sunrise.
During this journey from the North to the Eastern peak, I was once again relieved to be doing this by hike by nightlight. I couldn’t see the shear drop off of the cliffs, thousands of feet down, on one staircase we had to climb, that seemed to go on forever. The only things I can relate it to are 1) the staircase in Lord of the Rings – The Fellowship of the Ring where the fellowship is running away from that beast in the Dwarf’s great halls before the staircase breaks and 2) those comics where the escalator goes on forever into the sky; fortunately this staircase landed me back on solid ground. I was happy for the chain railings on either side for my white knuckles to grab onto only letting go when I had too.
Evidently, we left far too early into the night and reached the Eastern peak around 3:45 am, and had to endure howling winds and bitter temperatures tucked into the corner of two external walls of one of the guest rooms we were too cheap to rent. Around 5:45 am, we made our way to the actual Eastern peak viewing pavilion, establishing our spot among the hordes that had gathered to watch the sunrise, for another 45 minutes or so. The sunrise was completely anti-climactic and for me was a let-down for the effort we put in getting up to this spot. I took a couple of good photos that you can see, but overall, I was looking for more colours rather than the bland greyness the sky presented us with, a sky we were all too familiar with in Shanghai.
Following this we made our way to the three remaining peaks (South, Western, and Central) for some truly inspiring views. The winds continued too howl, but with the sun up, it felt a little warmer. When we were atop the Western and Central peak, it felt like if you didn’t keep your feet firmly planted, you would blow away. We wrapped up our hike after the 5 peaks were reached and made the long journey back to Xi’an to sleep for a while, 16 hours to be a tad more precise.
We took in other sights the following day like the Wild Goose Pagoda, the drum tower, the bell tower, as well as the Shaanxi Museum, which because of the age of the city and its significance in Chinese history was filled with all kinds of interesting bits and pieces, like artifacts, gems, and gold found in the surrounding area from the cities dynastic days. Our time in Xi’an was coming to an end and our return to Shanghai was next on the docket.
End of Part #1
-Bai Hú
Post Script: on the Mt. Huashan hike, a number of us had wanted to do the most dangerous part of the hike, but it was too windy and that section was closed. I would encourage you to take a look at this YouTube to get a sense of what could have been: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjvLIvnrTvU