Wuyi Shan to Shanghai: Kidnapping Part 2

"Shanghai??" you may ask. But I wasn't supposed to go to Shanghai for another week! Well, plans change once in a while, especially when you are traveling by yourself and with no real itinerary. Turned out I met some people and decided to spend Saturday and Sunday with them, which included a night train Saturday night to Shanghai. And here I am! But more on that later. First, Wuyi Shan.

I'm going to start by saying that Wuyi Shan is incredible. It is definitely a Chinese domestic tourist site, which is rather amusing. It isn't as far "out there" as a lot of the places I've been, in fact, it's pretty manageable on one's own. But it is the most beautiful place I've found outside of Yunnan and Yangshuo (that backpacker's paradise in Guangxi Province that I visited last November, http://meganinchina.blogspot.com/2005/11/yangshuo.html). I arrived early Thursday morning to find that a young married couple from Beijing that I had befriended in Xiamen was also there. They spoke wonderful English and took me under their wing. As the tour guides and hotel scouts surrounded me on the platform, shoving pamphlets into my face and trying to get me into their vehicles, my new friends beat them off and we jumped into a taxi together. We wound up at the nicest hotel in Wuyi Shan, a 4 star hotel called Su Yin. My Chinese friends bargained the price of my room down to 200 RMB a night, or $25. Incredible! I figured for security's sake I could spend a little more than usual for one night. After some guidance from the helpful, English speaking concierge, I threw on my men's hiking shorts and chacos and took to the road, map in hand. Wuyi Shan is divided up into two areas: the city where the train station is and, twenty minutes away, the mountain ("Shan" actually means "Mountain" in Chinese) with a resort district at the base, where we were staying. I crossed the river to the actual mountain, assuming that with just a short walk I could find a park entrance and begin hiking. Turned out that wasn't so much the case, but luckily I was approached by a man on a motorcycle who asked me where I was going. He offered me a ride for 1 RMB (which conveniently changed to 6 when we got there. So it goes) and so I strapped on a helmet and climbed onto the back. He took me 10 minutes down the road and let me off at the entrance to Heavenly Tour Peak, one of the most famous scenic spots at Wuyi Shan. I spent the next 3 hours hiking the various stone paths through the giant stone karsts and along the Wuyi River. I even climbed to the top of Heavenly Tour Peak, a slightly treacherous and scary climb up the side of a rock face, conveniently equipped with stairs and a railing. For the first 3/4, I was accompanied by various Chinese tourists, but at a certain bend they all seemed to give up and I was finally on my own. I was rewarded with tranquility and views of the entire park, complete with stone faced mountains, lush valleys, and a winding river. Now if it only hadn't been so damn humid...

I continued hiking and made it to a temple on the other side of the park before finding a path to take me back to the entrance. At the entrance of the park, I found an old neo-Confucius school turned into a museum and took my time exploring the somewhat lame exhibition on a famous scholar from the area. Turned out that all of Wuyi Shan is in a strange way devoted the neo-Confucius scholars that came to the area to study and I found many other shrines to the philosophy throughout the day.

Next stop: bamboo rafting. I took to the road again and after a mere 30 seconds was approached by a different motorcycle driver. After a bit of discussion and some convincing on his part that I didn't actually want to go bamboo rafting, I allowed him to take me somewhere else, somewhere better. We took off on a 40 minute drive through the countryside, which alone made the trip worth it. We drove between villages, past scattered fields with farmers, and past an old and abandoned looking temple. There I was on the back of that motorcycle, wind blowing through my hair, and a huge grin on my face as I was driven through the most beautiful area I've found East of Guangxi. I thought about how sometimes I get a tad lonely and am experiencing various bouts of exhaustion with all the effort life on the road requires, but all those moments of strife are certainly worth the few amazing moments I stumble across. I had a similar view back in Beijing on living alone (http://meganinchina.blogspot.com/2006/01/living-alone.html), and it is nice to know that some things don't change.

So we didn't arrive at a nice, calm bamboo rafting location. Rather, I found myself purchasing a ticket for river rafting. You know, the thing with rapids. Hmmm. The site of rafting was a bit up the road from the ticket stand, so I climbed back on the motorcycle and we kept going. We rounded a turn and my driver told me that this was where the trip would end. All the while we had been driving along a fairly tame looking river, but once we turned this corner, it turned treacherous. I gulped. A little voice inside my head said "I wanna go home!" I never signed any sort of contract stating I wouldn't sue if I got injured. In fact, I never gave anyone any sort of information at all and it occurred to me that if I should drown, as is sometimes the case with water activities, they would have no idea who I was. I then found out I had to give up any electronics I brought with me, which at that time consisted of only my American cell phone. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. If I brought it with me, it would get ruined. If I left it behind, it would certainly be stolen. I finally forfeited the phone to my driver who promised to wait for me at the bottom. I had no other choice, but the situation left me really uneasy. I kept my wallet with me - I figured wet cash was better than none at all. We were given helmets, which I thought was a good sign, until I realized they were no better than upside down wicker baskets. What on earth had I gotten myself into? I climbed into a boat with 5 other nice looking Chinese tourists and hoped for the best.

It turned out to be OK. A tad scary at times, for sure, but there was no drowning involved and I count that as a big plus. We did have to stop several times and empty the boat of water, but when you compare that to sinking, it's not so bad. The rapids were nothing like what I had done with my family in Bali and New Zealand, but the lack of safety equipment made that a good thing. The only precaution this company really seemed to take was stationing life guards at the bottom of particularly difficult rapids. We emerged the other end of the trip an hour later soaked and a bit deaf (Chinese girls shriek. 'Nough said). My loyal motorcycle driver was there waiting for me with my cell phone, grinning and asking if I had a good time. Incredible. I know that this will not always be the case and I have no intentions of letting my guard down, but it is a bit heart warming that honest people do exist. He asked me if I wanted to change clothes before we left, to which I replied I had none. My boat companions started yelling "mei guo ren mei you yi fu!" (The American has no clothes!). Yeah, yeah laugh it up. I came unprepared. I wound up buying a different shirt with Chinglish all over it ("Moste best") for the ride back.

My second day in Wuyi Shan was equally adventurous, but in a different way. I woke up early in the morning and headed off towards a different scenic spot (without the motorcycle this time, I decided I had had my dose of danger the previous day and stuck to buses) called "Ray of Light". While hiking around and enjoying the various caves and climbs and views, I ran into a group of tourists from Pakistan. Rather, they ran into me. I was approached by one who tried speaking Chinese to me and asking if he could take a picture with me. I responded in Chinese, assuming they didn't speak English and that Chinese was our only common language. They thought I was Chinese. From Xin Jiang. Close, I told them later, really close. German-American, but that's an easy mistake to make.

The group was a really fun bunch who lived and worked together in Shanghai and were on a quick 3 day trip at Wuyi Shan. They invited to me go to lunch with them and I wound up spending the rest of the day with their tour group. I'm not so big on Chinese tours, but the companionship was quite nice after my days of solitude. They invited me (rather, insisted) to join them back to Shanghai, told me they'd show me around and what not. After all, Shanghai is a big city and is nice to have a local to help you gain your barings, so I figured why not? This is why I travel alone after all, so I can change plans at a moment's notice. So I checked out my hotel and headed to the train station. And that's how I wound up arriving in Shanghai this morning. It's not too much of a hassle, because all of the places that I wanted to see after Wuyi Shan are all within a few hour radius of Shanghai by train, so I'll still be hitting most of the provinces on my original list. Tomorrow morning I plan to take off for Hangzhou, capital of Zhezhiang Province, that is if I can get away from my captors. We'll see :). For now, back to the streets of Shanghai I go. I have some sight seeing to do!