Guanzhai Mountain

So on June 2 my plan was to visit Guanzhai Mountain - located just outside of Liancheng, and relatively famous. But that morning it began to rain. And rain and rain. So I decided to delay that plan, and instead spent most of the morning in an internet bar updating my blog. However, by the early afternoon, it had cleared up, so I hired a motorbike guy to drive me up to the mountain.

Guanzhai mountain sort of reminded me of writing on stone - lots of hoodoo like structures, only instead of being in an arid area, it is in a very wet, forested area. When I got there, I was practically attacked by people claiming that I needed a guide, otherwise I would get hopefully lost. Instead I just bought a map of the area for 2 yuan, and set out on my own.

At the ticket office, I saw that the entrance ticket was 60 yuan, but that if you took the boat, which let off at a different area, it was 90 yuan. I had been told by someone in town that taking the boat trip was pointless and it was just a way for the company to make more money, so I decided to opt out of it. However, when I actually got to the booth, the lady claimed that they only sold 90 yuan tickets that included the boat trip. When I told her that the sign outside of it said that they also sold 60 yuan tickets, and that I didn't want to take the boat trip (at this point, I really didn't have time to anyways because it was already 3pm). She pouted, but then from a secret location under her desk, she pulled out the 60 yuan tickets, which suddenly she was able to sell! Pretty lame. So now I knew that it was privately owned and that I had better be on the watch for other opportunities to bilk me out of more money.

A small pagoda at the top of a rock formation.

Anyways, the actual mountain scenery was very pretty, and with the rains that morning, made the rivers going through it much bigger and exciting. I think that my favorite rock formation (they give names to all of them) was the "root of life" - I'll post a picture of it later, and it should be fairly obvious why it is called that. Unfortunately, I missed the accompanying "door of life" which was featured on the boat tour. Too bad.

The all too appropriately named "Root of Life" (Shengming zhi gen) rock.

There was a temple there, and my map showed a trail looping around the outside that took me over to some other rock formations - however, when I asked the temple guides how to take it, they freaked out saying that nobody takes that path and that it was dangerous because it went along the edge of a cliff and all you had was a railing to keep you safe. I knew that Chinese people tend to overstate things like this, so I took the path anyways, and it was COMPLETELY safe! Just nobody took the trail because there was a large downhill and uphill. But it took me closer to the rock structures than I otherwise would have, and it was very peaceful as well.

The trail of death - or at least that was what one of the park employees made it out to be - after seeing that her description of a dangerous trail where I would likely fall off a cliff and die did not dissuade me, she proceeded to claim that there were "snakes", and she also made a very convincing hissing noise to prove that these snakes did indeed hiss loudly.

A view from the top of the so-called "trail of death" - the path goes down in between these large rocks - again, somewhat like the hoodoos at writing-on-stone.

Anyways, all went well, and I made it back to my hotel by around 6:30pm. I wasn't willing to go out to find someplace to eat, so I decided to eat in my hotel's restaurant - which would be a bit more expensive, but I was feeling lazy. Let's just say that this restaurant isn't the most happening place in town. I entered, and all of the staff got up from resting at the tables, and as the only person in the entire restaurant, ate a very nice meal. It was almost eerie though, because it was a fairly large restaurant, and I was the only one there. However, dinner was excellent and it was still only 30 yuan.