2 September 2012
Purple haze
Perhaps the main attraction of the Nanjing area is the Purple Mountain.
There are many things to see here, including Ming tombs, some kind of amphitheatre which I couldnt figure out from the sign, botanic gardens, various areas for monks to beg for money from tourists, camping areas, mountain biking trails and probably more.
I looked at none of these things.
Instead I visited the Dr Sun Yat-Sen mausoleum. Dr Sun was the founder of the republic of China, his group was over thrown by the communists and they fled to Taiwan. I visited his succesor, Chiang Kai-Shek's tomb in Taiwan.
Apprently this is the only place in mainland China where the old Republic of China flag (Taiwanese flag) is still shown, but I didnt see it.
Anyways, the park is huge and fantastic, great facilities, well signposted, lots of people at the main sites but plenty of paths off to the side to enjoy on your own.
I took too many photos so will type more there.
37C at 9AM. So great weather for climbing mountains then.
Youre supposed to catch a bus, you can see the mountain in the distance. Not me. I stubbornly exercised my blisters for miles just to get to the start.
The scenery along the way is great, lots of people riding bikes, fishing, flying kites and camping in the fields. I didnt see any chemical factories, coal fired power plants, rubbish.
Once at the base of the mountain area, the scenery becomes very lush. Praise Mao for the gift of shade. Also he took care of the noisy birds which would have otherwise distrubed my serenity.
I brought no water. Because I am a foolish tourist. Not to worry, theres plenty of areas such as this dotted around the place to buy water, salted duck tongues, live baby turtles, and battery powered soldiers that crawl along with machine guns.
The crawling machine gun men are surely the most popular toy all across Asia, I have no idea why as these seem crap to me.
Gate 1 and the start of the steps. Some people complain at the first sign of steps and sit in protest. Never underestimate a Chinese (or Japanese, or Korean) girls desire to wear heels anywhere.
The next gate.
The final glorious ascent to his tomb. Watching people take 3 steps and bend over in great pain is quite disturbing. I think some people were planning to take all day to get up here. There are water and ice cream stands all the way along it in case your fat ass needs an ice cream to handle a few more steps.
I bounded straight to the top, 2 steps at a time. Rocky style. At one stage I tripped and looked like an idiot, but I edited that out.
Looking back down from the top. Its a shame about the haze. Apparently its called the Purple mountain because the clouds often appear to be purple. I couldnt see anything purple and cloud like. Some of these guys naming mountains have been sniffing too many scooter fumes.
I didnt take any pictures inside, the signs said not to. Apparently his body is in there though. Its not like Mao or Stalin where they have a fake lookalike body drained of formaldehyde every night and makeup applied.
It took me some time to find the way to now climb to the top of the mountain. You have to climb all the way down the steps and head off through some little villages before going up again.
Once I knew I was on the right track I celebrated by hanging out with Buddah. We have a mutual disrespect for one another.
Near the top you can see the far side of the mountain. Sort of. They never really cleared an area for you to appreciate the view along the path.
Once at the top, you can look back on Nanjing. I think. Theres so much pollution haze its hard to tell.
Theres a chairlift to go back down, I eventually did take it but getting a ticket was an ordeal.
They couldnt quite understand that I had walked up and only wanted to take it back down. For most normal people they either take it both ways or take it up and walk down.
Also you dont buy the tickets from the nice looking station area, you have to find a little old lady sitting under an umbrella a few hundred metres away.
Maybe she buys tickets at the bottom and sells them to fools like me at the top?
The ride went forever. At least 30 minutes. I nearly fell asleep. Well I would have but every child going past in the other direction would yell HELLO! at me. I would answer, GOOD MORNING HOW ARE YOU? and they would say, .....HELLO!
Lush forest I had walked through to get to the top. It really is a huge park and the theres paths everywhere.
The chairlift goes down a different direction to that which I walked up in. Theres thousands of cyclists taking it seriously in the carpark.
I had no real idea where I was, but decided to just keep walking downhill.
Once at the bottom I found a lake which I could identify on the map. Of course its nowhere near a metro line. Thats OK I might as well walk back to my hotel.
I went on various shortcuts that were dead ends, but did get to see some very interesting parts of Nanjing.
The roads get watered periodically, to make them grow.
This market is large, and pretty clean. Its a bit quiet, maybe I am too late for all the action. Also its Sunday.
All the dried fish products seem to be missing from this part of China, they are so popular in other parts. Instead you get dried salty duck. Every part of the duck, mmm salty duck genitals, good for virility!
In amongst my back street adventures there were many stores selling live lunch.
This is the metro line under construction behind my hotel. I just wandered in an open gate and acted like I owned the place. No one seemed to mind. The construction method is to dig a trench and rebuild a road over it, I believe most of the New York subway was built in this manner too.
I can sit at my hotel window and watch the construction work going on, I enjoy this greatly because I am half crazy.