Located in the Shandong province, Taishan mountain, also known as Mt Tai, was another natural attraction that captivated us while researching China. It is located in East China & is associated with the rising sun, birth & renewal.
A sacred mountain worshipped by the Chinese people for as long as time, the first of five holy mountains. Mythology claims it was created from the limbs & head of Pangu, the creator & first living being.
It is where Confucius taught, a temple, his rock & some of his literature are still on display.
There is the presence of monks here,with a monastery that sits 3/4 of the way up the mountain through the gate of heaven.
To walk to the top of Mt Tai is to follow in the footsteps of every emperor from the last 2,300 years.
Historically important for being the site of rare Chinese ceremonies, worshipping & making offerings to heaven & earth, a ritual that is believed to ensure a dynasty's fortune. Not only is Mt Tai the place of these imposing ceremonies of Life, it is the home of powerful & ancient spirits. These spirits are placated with rituals to give thanks for a good harvest & to protect the people from floods & earthquakes. Along the journey to the top you will see evidence of a broad range of beliefs, derived from folk religion and connected with Daoism, a 2000 year old philosophy integral to the Chinese way of life. Mt Tai has also been a huge place for the development of Taoism & Buddhism. The slopes are covered in temples & shrines, dedicated to the many, complex spiritual beliefs. There is 22 temples and over 1800 stone tablets & various inscriptions.
Annually, vast numbers of pilgrims still visit Mt Tai, to climb the 7000+ stairs, many that attempt, don't make it.
According to Chinese legends, if you climb Mt Tai, you will live to be 100.
We started our journey at the Dai Kong archway, behind Dai temple, the road here is pretty flat and gives no indication of the mountain we are about to walk up. We choose the Imperial route, also called the central route & the East route. This is the route that the emperors took when ascending the mountain. It was just before 11am when we started our journey. The first part of the journey was very enjoyable, the chinese are very happy to be making the pilgrimage, there is lots of humming & singing. A few people were playing their own music, mostly old traditional singing music, we did hear a few people playing techno/rave music There was some dogs barking and a few roosters crowing. All the way up there was a continual noise of bells and chimes that people had attached to their own bags or to the trees. Surrounding the walkway was evidence that spring had arrived, pale pink and purple flowers on trees, yellow and blue flowers on the ground and a great range of green leaves were growing on the trees.The walk gradually became harder & harder as we went up. At the bottom of the mountain I brought a wooden cane mostly out of amusement, it was now becoming a necessity. The last quarter of the hike was the hardest, you climbed half of the elevation in that one section. The steps became dramatically deeper with a smaller ledge requiring you to angle your feet or walk on the balls of your foot as well as slanting down. Every few hundred steps, we would stop and have a 30 second rest while trying to stretch out our cramps.
It took us just over 4 hours to make our way to the top, including 2 beer stops, A total of 5,029 feet and over 7,000 steps.
Once at the top it was kinda disappointing. The pollution haze from the city obscured the view down the mountain and apart from the temples at the top, the land was dry, dusty & barren, a concoction of brown colours and rubbish was all you could see. The crowds were significantly worse up the top, with a lot of tour groups here that made the journey via a bus.
We made sure we reached the highest summit, visited a few of the temples, in particular the confucius temple, had a stretch and then made our way down.
Mount Taishan was always about the journey to the top, the achievement of endurance when we reached the bottom & not necessarily the view. As well as our own cold beer pilgrimage.
The first part of the journey down was perilous, Tom slipped a few times and I fell down a few steps until Tom caught me by my face and stopped my fall! After the steep section was done it became a lot easier & was a lot more enjoyable. A lot of the crowds from earlier on were gone, I suspect that most of the people who climb to the top, get the cable car or the bus back down. Not us! We were determined to walk back down again. With a couple of beer stops, we finally reached the bottom at 7.30pm, a much quicker time than our journey up. By the end it was dark, I felt so overcome with fatigue I couldn't trust my legs to carry my weight anymore or for my eyes to accurately judge the distance of the steps. On one occasion, very very close to the end, my legs totally failed on me & I crumpled to the ground. It was a 14,000 + steps & 25.6 km round trip.
I was so relieved to catch a taxi the rest of the way home & in ecstasy when I eventually was getting into bed. I'm not looking forward to the delayed onset of Muscle soreness we will get from this!
Due to us not being fluent in Chinese, we have not gained the deep & ancient wisdom from reading all the inscriptions. But we walk away from Mount Taishan & China as different people than who we were 4 weeks ago.
While on Mount Taishan at the highest peak, we attached a padlock, 1 among thousands, to represent our eternal love.
We purchased the lock the day before at the Dai temple, it has been blessed & at the top of the mountain we had our names engraved on to it as well.
We had another lock on a bridge in Australia that was removed by the authorities.
Looking at the other locks surrounding it, I feel like this one will last forever, up here on this sacred mountain.
- Alli
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