The Adventures of Tai'an

30/03/08

Today Kathy (Chinese Teacher), Barbara and I climbed Mt Tai.

Mt Tai to the Foreigners or Tai Shan to the locals is the most revered of China's Five Sacred Taoist Peaks with imperial sacrifices to heaven and earth offered from its summit. Only five of China's emperors ever climbed Tai Shan, although Emperor Qianlong of the Qing dynasty scaled it 11 times. From Its heights Confucius uttered "the world is small"; Mao declared "the east is red"; I said "I'm knackered"!

Mt Tai is 1545 M above sea level, with a climbing distance of 7.5 Km from base to summit. There are some 6600 gruelling steps.

The weather conditions on the mountain were very cold, windy and wet. There was even snow on the mountain! I wore leggings underneath my pants and a singlet, long sleeve thermal top, a vest and a jacket.

They say to allow two hours for climbing to Midway Gate to Heaven and then another 2 hours to climb to the summit and eight hours for a round trip. Well is took us 6 hours to get to the top and 4 hours to get down.

You see a bewildering catalogue of bridges, trees, rivers, gullies, towers, inscriptions, caves, pavilions and temples. Lost on us foreigners are the literary allusions, word games and analogies spelt out be the calligraphy decorating the journey.

The Midway gate to heaven is where we stopped to rest our legs and allowed our pulse to slow. Breathing became difficult in the altitude.

Path of Eighteen Bends eventaully leads to the summit. Climbing in this phase was in slow motion as our legs turned to lead. Even Tribes of wiry grandmothers passed us as it is said that if you climb Mt Tai you shall live to 100.