A climb to the Tai Shan mountain
- Details
- Written by Jure Štern
Today's chalange is a climb to one of the most sacred mountains in China - Tai Shan (1545 m). It is one of the five Taoist mountains, and the oral tradition says that the one who will climb to the top will live a long life.
The mountain is worshiped from the 11. century B.C., and is known to protect it's people. The saying says that every man that was important in China, once climbed the mountain (Confucius, Qui Shi Huang, Mao Zedong,...).
Tai Shan lies at the foothills of the town Tai'an. The bus from Jin'an takes one and a half hour. At the train station we are addressed by a Chinese named Ken. He speak very good English. We take the challenge of the climb together, we walk from a bus station to bus station and finnaly find a bus to the mountain. We could not have found it without his help.
To the top you can take three different roads (central, west and Tianzhu Peak). We chose the central one. Before we start the climb we eat a quick meal so we can easily walk through the 6000 stairs that awaits us. We also receive a gift from Ken, it is a small Moon Cake, which is the characteristic of the Moon Festival holiday this time around. It is a symbol of bonds between friends and family.
Almost half of the way we walk together, but then we got split up in the crowd and we never saw each other. After long three hour of walking we already feel the tiredness in our legs, so for the last part to the top we take the cable car.
The day is coming to the end and we need to catch a bus to Jin'an at 6 PM. In the waiting line for the cable car we wait almost an hour. At the foothills the line for the bus is even longer. We got off on an unknown bus station, call a taxi and drive to the real bus station. We are lucky a are at the right bus station, but after arriving in Jin'an we are taken to the wrong bus station and need to take the city bus. We are pointed to the bus number but are driven past hour hotel, so we need to get back on foot :).
