Fuddland
A day-trip to the mountain of [(鳳凰山) — Phoenix Mountain] proved one of my most enjoyable experiences since I came out here. It’s a two-hour train ride from and, at this time of year, is relatively tourist-free but also lush and green enough to make the climb well worthwhile.
Although it’s not particularly high [about 900 metres], it’s pretty steep going most of the way up, and in some places it’s quite a knee-trembling scramble to get to the next stage of the climb — and that’s with the aid of the rough-and-ready staircase that has been carved directly into the rockface.
Once one peak is reached, the other four or five can be reached relatively easily without descending and re-ascending too much, making for a quite lovely view of the surrounding countryside as you wander from peak to peak. I was really quite envious of the traders who get to sit around all day, selling bottles of water and snacks to thirsty visitors [although I’m sure getting to work every day with fresh supplies isn’t exactly easy].
One word of warning to the more rotund potential visitors wanting to reach the summit: start dieting today! In a shocking case of discrimination, there are parts of the climb that are simply not possible to progress past unless you occupy the leaner end of the scale. At one point, after squeezing though one particularly narrow passage way, I was half-expecting some sort of slim-person’s Utopia, full of frozen yoghurt, enormous aerobics classes and delicious Scarlett Johansson-shaped fruit hanging from every tree. Sadly, I was disappointed. Still, I got some nice photos along the way.
Comments
Anglofille | 2006 / 05 / 20 – 23:53
[resisting the urge to make Scarlett Johansson-induced wretching noise]…
Those are lovely photos, David, as always! :)
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