Off The Chinese Beaten Track

A TOWN with few sidewalks and drab, Soviet-style architecture greets the eyes upon disembarking at LuShan (Green Mountain) Train Station. A flurry of travelers’ race through security to the bus-booking office - a one-room building beside a derelict car park. You get on a bus and five minutes later a series of sights for sore eyes emerges: rice fields, green pastures and lush forest spurting out of pockets of untouched land. A mountain randomly juts out of the Jiangxi Province flat in the hazy blue distance, clouds encompassing its crown. Thankfully it's in the direction of the bus. Difficult to see anything for the moisture clinging to the windows. A green blur rolls by non-stop.
Forty minutes later, after a zig-zag race to the top of LuShan, the bus pulls up at TaiJi Hotel. You get off the bus and realize the hotel is surrounded by rainforest. Firs, pines and a whammy of other bold and bright green trees and plants paint a clean, pure picture of good things to come. 

The hotel clerk informs map-grappling guests that any trekking route will take a whole day to complete. I stick a little closer to the hotel on day one, tired after the train trip from Shanghai. I take a walk down a rocky, steep track with a series of backyard vegetable gardens to one side, and I follow the constant gush of water gurgling and racing down one of LuShan's many smaller slopes. The picturesque path leads to a busier road.  A constant and loud flock of Chinese tourists head uphill to the Hankou Pass and the tallest crest of all LuShan: Five Men Peaks. Buses beep obnoxiously, or cautiously, reminding hikers to keep clear - a Chinese norm.

The cable car entrance looms but I veer away, more curious about getting an eagle eye-view from a higher, nearby peak where boulders protrude like human vertebrae scaling toward a skull. Along the steep path I meet many young students enjoying the Labor Day holiday. A series of "novelty" pictures ensues with English chit-chat: "Hello, where do you come from? Can I have a picture with you?" This generally followed by jumps and squeals of joy. After some cardio climbing I, along with a few others, reach a boulder on top of a ridge, and cannot move ahead any further. The wind is strong and clouds move like ghosts over the ridge before diving like seabirds after fish. Gloomy and strong. I see how wind can help people defy gravity. Its strength is a reminder: we are humans and our boundaries are set by Mother Nature.  In this case she set two: boulders and wind. 

After trailing back down the ridge, biceps are pumping and the cable car looks inviting. It rattles side to side with the wind. A physical map presents itself, people trailing concrete paths like ants to pagodas, rocks and waterfalls. Too bad the water rushing downhill can't be heard for all the high volume traditional Chinese music. 

Streams gush all over LuShan, a 1474 metre-high peak covering 300 square kilometres. By naming rights, perhaps Spring Mountain is more appropriate. Water trickles between rock wedges, through mounds of moss, smashes into boulders and lakes suck in the juice of the tributaries. So pure and clean, you want to slurp it up and swim. Only thing, it's just a little cold. 

LuShan is, in some ways, a pilgrimage for Chinese to explore a deeply intertwined Buddhist history - temples and prayer caves dot the national park. Incense sticks, wishing wells, and Buddha's aren't hard to miss along the trails, no matter how isolated they may seem. In history, at one specific cliff, monks - in an effort to become Buddha - would jump to their deaths. Serene courtyards once inhabited by the devout stand with the grandeur of age. Now such buildings are mostly filled with local tea stores where men and women pick and dry that small branches of the popular relaxant. 

Besides its history LuShan also gives people scope. Cliffs protrude, boulders nestle with fragility on mountainous peaks and a select few gigantic trees spurt towards the sun, monstrous next the rest of the forest. Angles, shapes and height create new impressions for folks from the flats. An education in mountain multi-dimensionality. No matter the degree of slope, a boulder, cliff face, jagged edge or tree will defy you your sense of gravity and stability. And dare you to inch closer: vertigo! 

After hiking around its slopes, rolling hills and extraneous peaks, evening sets in. Jiangxi Province lies just north of steamy Guangdong, and despite snowy winters, the Sun here sets like a tropical one: late and fast. 

With night quickly approaching LuShan blows out her lungs. Crisp, clean and nice-smelling moist air wafts through the forest and up your nostrils. The perfect offering for a set of Shanghai lungs! Trees darken and its time to have a refreshing LuShan Co. beer. Light and sweet like the air here. 

You get perspective on the air at LuShan by peering down at the city of Jiujiang, which is sandwiched between the mountain and the mighty Yangtze River. Sometimes the industrious city and its horizon is visible and next hour etched away by smog. You can see modernity sprouting about. Wind turbines rotate generating power and noise. These natural power generators may reduce air pollution but their noise is so strong that you can hear them from one of the highest peaks on LuShan. 

This may bother some travelers but, realistically, it gives you an opportunity to appreciate this mountain some more. Natural life continues on LuShan unchanged by industry below, a reprieve from the daily grind of the rat race - and pollution that goes with it. It's a mighty mountain whose name could not be more of an adjective. Here, you will see every shade of green under the Sun. It spirals high all on its own, from a base of flats. LuShan is second to none.