Taishan-in-a-Day

My days in China were coming to an end, and I wanted to pack in as much as I could before leaving. Hence, the last-minute Taishan in a Day scramble. The journey was 9 hours, and I figured I would climb the mountain, and get on the night train back to Shanghai in order to be in town on Monday. So I arrived at the Taishan station bright and early, and went to buy my return ticket immediately after I arrived. Obviously, nobody at the station spoke any English. To my horror, I found out that there were apparently no seats left for that night train, and even for the next morning’s train. I started panicking – I needed to get back to Shanghai by Tuesday at the minimum, to catch my flight! And another thing was that I hadn’t breathed a word about this trip to anyone. So I decided that a bus would be at least acceptable an option; of course, there were no buses from Taishan to Shanghai. At that point, panicking, I went back to the window, and figured out from her gesticulations that the only tickets left were ‘standing’ tickets. I bought one, inwardly shit-scared about the prospect of traveling for 11 hours standing, especially after climbing a mountain. Ticket in hand, I thought --well, I guess I’ll climb that mountain when I get to it.

The sleepy town of Taishan is great during the autumn. There were so few tourists around, not even too many Chinese tourists. My guide book said that it takes about 8 hours to go up and down, but since I was leaving that day, and wanted to squeeze in a trip to Qufu if possible, I decided to go for as long as I could without pausing. The first half of the ascent was bizarre: construction workers were literally digging up all the stairs, there were machines and drillers boring unceremoniously everywhere; at times, I had to precariously vault myself over rubble to resume my climb. With my glove over my mouth to shield myself from at least some of the dirt flying through the air, it struck me how ironic my situation was: here I was, attempting to escape the pollution, noise and tumult of Shanghai, only to confront it head-on in this holy mountain oasis. Thankfully, by mid-point (560m) the construction stopped. The last leg up the mountian was undoubtedly the steepest, but afforded some magnificent views: gorgeous calligraphic texts scrawled on the mountain wall; the outlines of the monasteries of top peering majestically atop the jagged rock; trees spraying bursts of color on the slopes. I made it back down -- completely intact, thankfully -- in about 5 hours, which left me time to catch a bus to Qufu, the birthplace of Confucious. The city, about an hour’s drive away, made for a nice rest for my legs. There, I only had time to visit the Kong Mansion. Though the architectural gem had been preserved for more than 2500 years, the government had thought it fit to allow innumerable peddlers and traders inside the compound, which was a bit disappointing. But still, I still enjoyed walking around to experience the sheer division of space within the compound; I always admire this aspect of Chinese architecture. I was pretty tired after this, so got on a bus to Qufu, and decided to spend my last two hours eating/reading in a local restaurant. Obviously, expensive places were around, but I was on my last run of yuan so I decided to go really local. I walked into the restaurant right across from the train station, and immediately said in chinese, “I don’t eat meat. Can I get some dishes with only vegetables?” Immediately, the owner looked at me and said, admonishingly, (in chinese), “We don’t serve huicai here, we only serve han-cai”. I had no idea what he was talking about. I repeated that I didn’t eat meat, and eventually it came out that I was Indian. With a surprised look, he said slowly, “I thought you were from Xinjiang province!” (=non Han-Chinese). He warmed up, made some more small talk, and I was able to order food and sit around. It felt great to have been able to walk into the most local of local places and get what I wanted; at the same time, I couldn’t believe that a) I had been unknowingly discriminated against and b) people from the Xinjiang province face this kind of discrimination.