Entries about buddhist mountain

March 17

Our rented van came by the hotel this morning at around 0800, so we packed up and headed out to the Mount Wutai area. The weather was cool, almost cold with a few clouds in the sky. The trip took about three hours total which brought us to the normal entrance one expects to see at such a mountain site. Since we had made a packaged deal with the tour agency who provided us with the van, the driver had to make all the arrangements with the state-run cultural area.

01_MTWutaiMaps

Some very Tibetan-looking touts came up to sell us some maps. Of course, I had to buy one, against the wishes of Sunee.

01_WutaiHotel

About forty minutes up the mountain we are dropped off at our hotel. The hotel was just OK but later we would find that it had little or no heat and the temperature was going to get really cold at night.

02_Lunch

Since it was around noon when we checked into our hotel rooms, we went ahead and had lunch at the hotel restaurant. Not too expensive and not too good but enough to get by.

03_buswaiting

There is always a system of transportation on all of these famous mountains from Emei to Huang. Usually the entrance ticket will get one a free ride on buses going up and down the mountain. Wutai was no different. We walked out to the front of our hotel and caught the first bus headed up the mountain. We traveled on it all the way to as far as it was going and then worked our way down. Actually we did not have that much time so we only visited three temples.

04_IncenseBurn

The temple where the bus stopped was very small and obviously very old. It was active as I saw several monks strolling around or studying in the courtyards.

05_firstvisit

The wood on the entrance was well-worn but still in good shape. We spent about half an hour in this small temple and the pictures taking opportunities were excellent as you can see from the following samples.

05_insidebuddha

06_Monkstudy

07_Monkclose

08_columns

08_WutaishanHdr2

09_insidebuddha

10_Prayders

When we came out of this temple I saw this older gentlemen sitting on the steps in a position of prayer or meditation. Very authentic!

11_waiting

We also saw this group of nuns waiting for the bus. One came in about ten minutes and we all climbed aboard headed to the big temple we had seen coming up the road.

12_onbuspass

On the way down, I snapped this picture of a temple on the left. It appeared to be a temple where the monks were interned after their passing. Reminded me of what we had seen at Shao Lin Temple in Hunan Province and the little temple near Fuhu Temple on Mount Emei.

13_GreatWhiteDagoba

The Tayuan Temple on Mount Wutai with its Great White Dagoba is supposed to be one of the most important. We spent a couple of hours visiting it and, of course, I took a lot of pictures.

14_tayuan

15_mtntemple

16_TayuanEntrance

17_tayuanside

18_Monkandguys

19_HappyBuddha

20_HappyBase

21_walkway

22_coldcourtyard

As is evident of the snow, the temperature was right at freezing and with the wind it was downright cold.

23_toilets

When one has to, one has to. One of the worst "has to" places I have had the misfortune of visiting outside the silk road to Western China. Talk about rustic!

24_smalldagoba

25_fish

26_MainHall

27_Burner

28_TempleCourtyard

29_monkwork

30_swingprater

One of the most interesting areas of the temple was the prayer wheels that wen all around the base of one of the buildings. I saw several monks and nuns walking around this base and spinning the wheels.

31_PrayerWheel

32_spinning

33_Morespinners

And the spinning continues, continues, continues. . .

34_WutaiPagodaview

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. It was taken from the side of Tayuan temple looking out toward the mountains in the distance. Beautiful!

36_tourguide

This is the tour guide who eventually helped us get a van the next day for our continuation trip to Datong. She looked to be very Tibetan but was very nice.

37_pagodafront

One final picture of the temple (HDR with multiple exposure modes). The sky was especially beautiful this day.

Getting back to the hotel was a breeze as we only had to wait a few minutes to catch it. The tour guide made the appropriate phone calls and we had a van to our next destination scheduled at around 1000 the next morning. That night, however, was the coldest I have been since we lived in Alaska in the early 1980s. It was cold!

March18

The next morning we got up really early. Sunee had made arrangements for us to take a couple of taxis up to the Guan Yin Temple about half an hour or so away. She wanted to visit this temple specifically because she had been watching a lot of Chinese movies with this temple as the backdrop. The wind was gusting and the air was very cold when we got into the taxi and went to visit the temple.

101_StepsFront

Arriving to the temple found it locked up tight. It took a good fifteen or twenty minutes to roust the monks up to open the doors for us. They were friendly but professional as we entered the temple.

102_Guanyingfront

103_Guanyingtowerview

105_Gurnyingview

107_roustedmonk

I was able to take several pictures outside before we got a monk to open the doors. He was neither unhappy nor happy to see us.

108_WheelBuddha

Inside we found Guan Yin as expected but also a beautiful temple.

109_FirstCourtyard

110_SecondCourt

The temple had at least two courtyards and it was obvious that this temple was very old but well maintained.

111_Guanyin1

112_Guanyin2

114_Guanyin4

Back inside out of the wind (but not the cold) I took several more pictures of the images. We were in a hurry so we got our taxis back down to our hotel where our van to Datong awaited us. Sunee negotiated a shopping stop on the way out of the area, so I had a few more minutes to find some things to photograph.

115_anothertemple

This temple was across the street from where Sunee and family were shopping. It was about half way up the mountain and very nice.

116_Coldgirl

In front of the store where Sunee was shopping, I saw a bunch of Tibetan women hanging around waiting for something. This was the best I could do from inside the van without bringing any attention to myself. It was just too cold to get out of the car and take pictures!

We left Mount Wutai about 1100 and it took a little over two hours to get to our negotiated next site - The Wood Pagoda.

118_Frontgate

Bye bye Mount Wutai!

119_Mutatown

Hello, Yingxian and the wooden pagoda or Shuozhou Pagoda. Sunee and I stopped here on our Courtyard Trip the year before and I loved it.

120_mutafrontgate

This pagoda is about 45 miles from our next destination of Datong so we could spend a couple of hours here and have lunch as well. The pagoda is the oldest and highest wooden structure in China. According to the TravelChinaGuide internet site (http://www.travelchinaguide.com)it is regarded as the 'First Pagoda in the World." It was built around 1056 and is

Built during the Liao Dynasty (about 1056), this wooden pagoda has about 900 years of history. It has a height of about 220 feet tall with around 100 foot diameter long. "The Pagoda appears as a five-storey structure, but in fact it has a total of nine stories with four hidden inside." Unfortunately ne can only go up to the second floor. This time all the windows were closed to keep out the wind so there was very little to see. I got some great shots the last time from this second floor. The wood in the structure is in fairly good shape with a lot of wear and tear in some areas. I have always wondered how this structure survived the Cultural Revolution when so many of these old temple buildings were burned to the ground.

121_mutadoubleguardshdr

122_Mutafront

123_mutaguanyin

124_Mutahappy

126_scary

127_Mutastraight

128-Sidebuddha

As you can see, I still took lots of pictures. The pagoda grounds had been cleaned up and the whole area looked as if it had been revamped for the tourist trade. We actually had visited this place two years previously. A lot of positive changes had been made over the course of those two years. BRAVO!

It took another two hours to get to Datong and find us a hotel. The hotel we found was inexpensive and fairly nice. We did, however, have a hard time finding a place to eat as we were located fairly far from downtown Datong. I was amazed at how friendly the people were who walked by us. Everyone we saw seemed to greet us with a smile. This was not what I had expected from reading the guide sites on the internet. I had a good feeling about this town. Too bad we would only get to stay here overnight.

March 27

We got up really early and caught a car to the airport. Enliven had scheduled her friend to take us to the airport. It was a very foggy day so the flight to Heifei was delayed two hours.

01-FlttoHefei

We finally left at around 1030 and arrived to Hefei at around 1230. Upon arrival to the airport we picked up a minibus that took us to the bus station where a bus was leaving for Mount Jiuhua, the third mountain on our Pilgrimmage Tour. We only had to wait about an hour before our bus left. The trip took six hours and was pleasant, even more so as we were traveling with a family that was making their annual trip to visit Mount Jiuhua. During the trip, we learned a lot about the mountain and Chinese life in generally. The family eventually invited us to stay at the hotel where they always stayed. It was on the mountain with a sister hotel at the base of the mountain. Our plan was to spend one night on the mountain and then transfer to the sister hotel closer to the bus station where we would head south to Ningbo. The plan was executed perfectly.

02-unsetontheroad

A sunset as we arrive to the Mount Jiuhua area. Beautiful. We were immediately transferred to a private car which took us up the mountain to our hotel.

03-iuhuashangate

Like all tourist mountains in China, Mount Jiuhua had an official entrance gate. We spend the night in a nicely heated room with the temperature outside near freezing. Inexpensive, modest and friendly was the game at this hotel. Very hospitable!

March 28

In the morning, we were provided a guide who took us up the mountain to some of the most important temples. Lots of pictures and lots of interesting things to do and see.

04-templefronthdrff

The temples were authentic and not commercial. This was a serious working Buddhist area.

04a-climbingmtn

Here we paused to visit with a local monk with our guide leading the way.

04b-guide

This is our lovely and charming guide who walked with us for about two hours and explained what we were seeing and visiting. The temples were of a different style and the atmosphere around them was more serene and realistic. This was where serious Buddhist monks came to study in solitude.

04c-Firsttemple

04d-secondtemple

04e-anotherview

06-smalltemp

07-skinko22ff

As we paused and enjoyed the scenery that each temple offered, I found this guy sitting in the sun. Looked just like a skink and, of course, it was.

08-chickensff

How about some fresh-air dried chicken for your dining pleasure. Lots of pictures just waiting to be taken. We finished this little tour and then caught a free bus to the other side of the mountain where a small cluster of temples were located. Sunee did not want to take the cable car to the top so we just meandered around the cluster of buildings. It was worth the meandering

09-Templedoor

10-Behinddoor

11-Ancienttemple

12-incenseburner

12a-path

The mountain path we followed was magnificent. This reminded me of that Robert Frost poem - what was it about taking a forest path?

13-Locktradition

Every mountain we have been on so far has a tradition of engraving locks then placing them on one of the handholds along the stairs. This was no different. We have a lock on Mount Emei, but that is the only place.

15-jiuhuasunset2

We took the free bus (actually Sunee had to pay 5 Yuan because she got to come to the mountain for free) to our hotel but not before buying some local Jiuhuashan Silver Needle green tea. Price was about the same as good green tea form Emei. That evening we went to the sister hotel down at the base of the mountain where there was a beautiful and awe-inspiring sunset.

17-sunsethaystack2

We had to get up early to catch the bus to Hangzhou so we simply called it an early evening and slipped peacefully into our adventure sleep mode.

March 29

The bus to Ningbo left at 0700 so we got up at 0500, checked out of the small hotel and went to where we were supposed to catch the bus. No bus station just a small restaurant where we bought our 150 Yuan tickets. We had a quick breakfast and boarded the ten-minute- late bus to Ningbo. It took us seven hours to finally get to Ningbo. The bus was not crowded and was comfortable.

On the bus, we met a monk traveling from Mount Jiuhua back to his monastery in Ningbo. He was personable and gave us a lot of information about Mount Putuo, our destination. He also told us about a very old temple called Baoguo Temple. Seems all major cities had a temple with that name. He invited us to go with him to visit the temple in his car. I had not done much research on Ningbo which I knew was once considered to be the financial center of the region but had been surpassed by Shanghai.

We arrived to the bus station (a very big one) and got a taxi with our friendly monk to his car. He then drove us to the temple which took over an hour from the bus station. And what a temple it was! It was the oldest temple in the region but was no longer a Buddhist place of worship but a museum. Check out the pictures from our visit.

Baoguo Temple is located on the mountainside of Lingshan Mountain, about 10 miles away from downtown Ningbo City. It is what the Chinese call a cultural relic. It was initially established in the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) and rebuilt and expanded in later dynasties. The present Baoguo Temple is a mixture of constructions made by various dynasties.

The Grand Hall is the main construction of the temple. Built in the Song Dynasty (960-1279), it is one of the oldest and the best-preserved example of wooden architecture south of the Yangtze River.

03_HDRMainHall

03_Mainhall

04_Inside

What was interesting about this Grand Hall was the fact that it was a thousand years old and collected no dust inside nor were there ever any insects to be found. The guide who went with us (the temple was actually closed but was opened just for our visit) told us that the wind blows through the hall in such a way that all dust and insects are carried out on a regular basis. The temple reminded me a lot of the wooden temple that housed the largest reclining Buddha in Gansu Province. The joints and trusses look the same. The wood was beautiful and well preserved. Well worth the visit.

05_columnbase

06_grounds

07_guest

Here is the picture of our friendly monk and the guide posing with Sunee at the front of the Main Hall

08_Fontplaque

The complex was obviously set up as a museum with the grounds well-kept and information signs placed on the various items.

09_Statues

10_Composition

11_StoneJars

12_Lions

13_Grounds

The column shown was the oldest part of the temple and dated back to the Tang Dynasty (618-97) or a couple of hundred before the current temple. Buddhism first came to China in 64 AD.

Inside the temple, along the central axis are located the Mahavira Hall (the Grand Hall), the Kwanyin Hall, the Devaraja Hall and the Scripture Repository. Around the Grand Hall are scattered the Bell Tower, the Drum Tower and the Guest House.

14_NaturalSpring

Half way up the hill to the main temple is a natural spring called Linlong Spring which formed Hansu Pool. It was very nice and the water was cold.

15_SpringCave

16_Bridge

We finished our tour and invited the monk to join us for dinner when we found a Hanting Hotel in downtown Ningbo. He had just the place for us to have dinner - the most famous vegetarian restaurant in the city.

17_Dinner

We enjoyed a fabulous vegetarian meal with our friend. The vegetarian food was as good as anywhere we had eaten in China and the world. It was not cheap but well worth the effort. We got the name and address of the monk and promised to keep in touch.

We checked into our hotel and made reservation for a tour to Mount Putuo the next day via the hotel. No problems getting to sleep this evening.

March 30

Our tour began at 0620 this morning with a van coming to pick us up. The first time around the van came while we were in the elevator coming down. The front desk called our room and got no response so the jerk in the van immediately left. We had the front desk call the tour service for the van to return. Jerk is the kindest word I would use for the driver. We did finally get to our bus which was filled with Chinese tourist planning to spend the night on the island.

The bus took us to the port which was about two hours away. We then got on a medium sized passenger boat which took us to the island.

18_Boattrip

Medium size boats like this carried passengers to and from the island on a regular basis. I counted four going and coming just in the few minutes we were waiting to board the boat.

19_WelcomeCenter

Welcome to Mount Putuo, a highly successful commercial venture featuring Guan Yin as the main attraction. Emphasis should be placed on commercial as we paid a lot of money to come to the island with this tour. Everything is set up for tours and I doubt if many independent travelers can conveniently come here. I would not even try.

20_Goodluck

One must always start a new adventure with Good Luck.

21_Ornament

22-Crowds

The tour begins with the few of us on the day trip gathering around the welcome area just down the road from the entrance to the temple area.

23-Courtyard

We love Chinese courtyards so I take pictures whenever we come across one.

24-Officialentrance

The Official Entrance to Putuoshan. The following represents what we saw in order. Commercial is the key word here.

25_OceansideTemple

26_SmallPagoda

27_OcceanView

28_Guanyin

The main Buddha for the island is Guan Yin and this statue seems to be the center point for tours. It looked to be new and was obviously set up for toursists. Nice, new and commercial. I took a few obligation photos as you can see.

29_Headshot

29_TallBuddha

30_GeneralStat

30_underneathBuddha

32_Tourists

This place was crowded tourists! We walked for several kilometers on a beautiful day.

33_Templeonrocks

34_BeachFun

35_Lunch

After the tour up the side of mountain to see the giant Guan Yin, we came back down to the beach area to have lunch. A typical Chinese tour lunch with bland food and lots of rice. Eat quick and meet the tour group over by the door.

36_AncientPagoda

After lunch we followed our tour group to some ancient buildings that had be preserved nicely. This, to me, was much more interesting than the commercial stuff we had been visiting. It was obvious that these building were built several hundred years ago. In fact, this was the center for Buddhism in China during the Tang Dynasty.

37_AcrossPond

38_BatStylized

Since a couple of bats visited our apartment at Mount Emei, we have seen lots and lots of stylized Chinese bats. Bats are good luck for Chinese. Here is but one example.

39_MoreCrowds

Once again, the operative word for these ancient temples and buildings was Commercial. We saw lots of monks and nuns so this place really is an active center for Buddhism but . . . the crowds, the crowds!

40_UpMtn

Finished with the temples it was time to climb another mountain. This would take us between two and three hours and we lost our tour crowd very early on so we enjoyed taking our "senior citizen" time. I took lots of pictures with the following providing a good sampling.

41_Locks

42_CaligRock

43_RockPose

44_PutuoSymbalRock

45_putuoshantemp1

46_TopOrnmnet

47_ANotherornament

48_GuardLion

Finally we came to the end of the well-worn path that let down out of the mountain. This path was easy and well maintained - very commercially viable to make sure all the tourists could walk at leisure among the temples. It led back down to where the boat was waiting for us to climb aboard and return us to Ningbo.

49_ReturnTrip

On the way back to Ningbo, our tour bus stopped at a huge shopping area that specialized in local products. I talked Sunee into buying some Focha or Buddha Tea which had been processed on the island for a few hundred years. It is a green tea and it was extremely expensive.

We finish our final Buddha Mountain visit with a relaxing evening in our hotel room - sleeping and preparing for our morning trip to Hangzhou. We were tired from the excitement of visiting Putuoshan and the climbing of its many mountains.