INES BRUNN
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China Impressions: Cities and Sights: Wu Tai Shan

Wu Tai Shan: One of the Chinese holy mountains

After some busy months we decided to take a long weekend in December and do a bit of hiking. We chose one of the holy buddhist places not too far from Beijing: The 5 plateau mountain. So we took a night train and arrived at 3am in the nearest city Shahe.

There are many temples and monasteries in this area. The Chinese come here to pray. For example by buying expensive huge incense stick pyramids to burn. We were quite amazed that a couple who had taken the same train spent 7000 RMB at 5am in the first temple we went to.

It was great to be there in winter as it was cold and had a little bit of snow and was really quiet. In other seasons it is said to be very crowded with tourists.

The second day was great. We hiked from the town in the center to the Bei Tai (the north plateau). Our plan was to sleep and eat in the temple at the top. The people in the town could not say for sure, if monks were in the temple or not. But all people in town were very clear that we could not walk up to there. Some said it is too cold. So we went anyway. It was a long hike but very beautiful. We we arrived at the peak it was freezing cold, we were exhausted but could not find people at the temple. We were so desperate that we did another check and did actually find a monk. They were very surprised that 2 foreigners came, but in the end they actually did give us food and we were able to sleep there.

Only hassle was getting back as you cannot buy train tickets more than 4 days in advance of a trip. So when we went to the train station to get a ticket and leave, there were none left. We were forced to go in the other direction by bus and then take a day train from there.