China’s ancient capital city Xi’an is surrounded by a more rural area that is dotted with smaller cities and villages that often have played their own little part in Shaanxi’s long history. Since I live in Xi’an I regularly make a trip to these nearby places and the small provincial city of Huxian (户县) that I visited with some friends on a sunny saturday, was definitely a nice ‘discovery’
Jinan’s 1000 Buddha Mountain
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Capital of Shandong Province (山东省) it may be, but Jinan (济南) really doesn’t rate highly on the travellers itinerary. It is at best placed fourth, if it rates at all: dwarfed by the ultra-famous Mount Tai (泰山); culturally out-gunned by the birthplace of Confucius at Qufu (曲阜) and just plain boring in comparison with the beer-festival’d, ocean-fronted, Bavarian-styled minion Qingdao (青岛).
I sympathise with Jinan much as I do with underdogs in any situation and this is usually more than enough to get me interested. The least attractive places are generally less peopled and all the more “real” for it.
Categories: Travel around China.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place
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Under normal circumstances nobody wants to find themselves between a rock and a hard place. But about 2,300 years ago an ancient art form developed and began spreading East, putting artisans, craftsmen, monks and politicians in exactly that position.
And they liked it.
For the past 1,700 years, we’ve had a reason to do it to ourselves, too—and it’s well worth it. Many liked the rocks so much and thought they were so valuable that they stole some from their hard place and absconded with them to countries far beyond the Chinese border.
Categories: Travel around China.
The silent sand: To Inner Mongolia’s Kubuqi Desert
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When saying Inner Mongolia, everybody (and especially people who like romanticizing) thinks of the green, hilly grasslands that are populated by skillful horse riders who live in tent villages. So did I when I went there. It never occurred to me that Inner Mongolia is also a province of deserts. And not the rocky kind of desert like the ones in the United States, or the kind of deserts that mainly consists of brownish stretches of soil likes the ones in Russia. No, Inner Mongolia’s deserts or of the kind we all know from the tales from the Arabian Nights; with yellow sand, high dunes and even camels going around in caravans. So far, this has been the most unexpected and surprising landscape I have encountered in China, adding yet another few highlights to China’s already gigantic vista variety.
Categories: Travel around China.
A Mountain Farmhouse Retreat
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Longxu Mountain: The mountain that leaks…
There’s a mountain in Zhejiang Province (浙江省) that leaks. To be precise it gushes water, in extraordinary volumes, from every nook and cranny. The mountain is called Longxu Shan (龙须山) and is probably unheard of outside Zhejiang.
In fact, the mountain sits atop natural springs that burble icy clean water all the way to Tai Lake. Tai Lake (太湖) is a vast lake [the third largest freshwater lake in China, covering over 2000km2] overlapping the borders of Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai with its waters. The Chinese government has spent the past decade and billions of Yuan fighting pollution there.
Categories: Travel around China.
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