Munching with monks

The steep mountains rose tall and majestic as we drove into the stunning alpine landscape surrounding Wutai shan. The town is surrounded by four significant peaks, in the south, east, north and west, with a central peak in the middle, each with its own temple. But those are far from the only temples in the area; Wutai Shan is buddhist centre, China, and the pagoda prone and stupa seeking travellers will get their money's worth.

Saving the piousness for bright and early next morrow, we had a spirit-loosening truck party upon arrival in the little town, with special guests from the north-east-going Dragoman truck. Beer flowed like wine, wine flowed like firewater and firewater flowed from a half dozen bottles, each more vile than the last. Good times were had by all, and the singalong and improvised dance from Mike and me to Pulp's Disco 2000 left no British heart untouched.

108 is not just the sum of the magical numbers in Lost, but also a magical number in buddhism. Obviously ten times that digit is even more magical, and thus there are 1080 steps leading up to Dailuo Terrace. Devout buddhists pilgrimage to the temple at the top, stopping every three steps to bow and pray, making the climb even more strenous. Working up quite a sweat, we reached the peak and made loose plans for the remains of the day.

Aiming for one of the cave temples, an octet of us boarded the free bus to take us there, but got off one stop too early. No drama, since there was another temple, and we timed that well. Not only did we see and hear the monks and nuns (yes, there are buddhist nuns) do their chanting and walking in procession*, but at eleven we were all eagerly invited, ushered even, into a great hall. Ladies to the left, gentlemen to the right, we were served a delicious meal with the monks an the nuns, thus partaking in one of their daily routines. There is no such thing as a free lunch, but apperently there is such a thing as a free elevenses.

Our quest for the Wenshu cave continued, but once again we found ourselves in a different temple, this one containing an enthusiastic and ever-smiling woman who, by means of hand gestures and charades took on the role of tour guide. Perhaps not so much thanks to her as to the ever-shuttling buses, we eventually found ourselves in the right direction. Implied was that we ought to hike through the forest, but that turned out to be a dud. Having to cross a brook, we eventually found a road, and not having any idea of how far the walk would be, we got offered a ride on the back of a local coaler's tractor. Once at the top, the cave was not much to blog about, but the thousands of multicoloured prayer ribbons were. There were thousands of them, and hey were prayer ribbons, who were multicoloured.

Struggling ever on, in yet another temple (this one with drumming monks), Dani made a sad discovery: Her camera was no longer with her. Hoping that the pilgrim-prone tourists were decent people we promptly decided to go back to where she last remembered having it. They proved to be, and when Mike handed the camera back to her, after initially faking failure, Dani shed a tear of joy.

As the end of this eventful day draw nearer, we had a shared meal at Hometown restaurant, and that was not the best meal ever. Au contraire, Fred Astaire. Or, you know, not at all, Sean Paul.

*) While not smashing holy books on their foreheads