into the bamboo forests

Other than for work, I have not considered traveling to China for leisure until this spring. It was WS who suggested we find a short escape in China while he was there on a work trip - and my online research for a place that was easily accessible, so that we did not have to waste our precious week just journeying, took me to MoGanShan.

Below is a brief record of the 3 days spent in a small, well-designed inn 30min by car from the main tourist belt of MoGanShan, and just 30min by car from DeQing city. DeQing city is itself easily reached by high-speed rail from the major cities of Shanghai (50min) or Nanjing (15min).  These images are taken from the train window ever 5mins or so from Shanghai to Deqing. 

Out of the city

On the short trail into the bamboo forest just behind the inn, we met 3 old folks. The first was an old man carrying 2 bags coming down the trail, his day was over and he was surprised we were just starting to walk, and walking "for fun". The second was an old woman who was also descending. She carried a cangkol on her shoulder and was sauntering happily down the steep slope. We bumped into the third old man on our way back. He was starting on his evening walk and told us he had been to Singapore and KL for a holiday, and that Japanese soldiers once marched through this trail and had killed one person in the village. Otherwise we were alone. 

I love the quiet.

The bamboo forest was cool and damp. Spring was still emerging. Low on the forest floor grew tiny seedlings, begonia and fern, while bamboo stretched towards the sky. We walked only 3km but took more than 90mins, stopping ever so often to try and capture the beautiful softness and green of the bamboo through the camera, and failing.

Up the main trail

160326 Mo Gan Shan / 莫干山 - In the late 19th century, this hilly bamboo district gained popularity as a place western missionaries and other expatriate communities built their retreat and holiday homes. I imagined the more modest stone houses belonged to the missionaries while the fancier manors and villas - some with tall turrets like castles - belonged to wealthier foreigners living in Shanghai. After the fall of the Qing dynasty, powerful Chinese republicans like Chiang Kai Shek joined in. He holidayed here for an extended honeymoon with Soong Mei Ling. Shanghai triad chiefs, including one called Big Ear Du, made this their conspicuous hide out! After world war 2, holiday homes were no longer legit in communist China. Nonetheless, Mao Zedong had supposedly stopped over and stayed in one of them in 1954, drafting parts of the socialist constitution. 100 or so of those villas remain

 

Our jaunt was less tumultuous. But it was quite arduous. We took 2 hour to trek uphill on some pretty steep stone steps, bamboo-lined gradients and across many creeks on mossy rocks until we reached Sword Pond and its waterfall. 

Here you will start noticing the many villas. The abandoned and empty ones managed by the state are known by their numbers. Number 68 and 67 are a series of modest stone cottages, not quite villas. But if you wander further down the streets and up the peak, they are grander.

 

We took a 2 hour detour and explored the area leading to the villa Mao Zedong stopped at. It was a strange contrast between the communist ideologue and the rather bourgeois house with oil paintings of European rural idylls on the walls. On our way out we encountered a group of Chinese old folks with strong provincial accents asking us if it was "worth" seeing the Mao Zedong villa. That took me a bit by surprise. Wasn't there some kind of reverence for him? 

By 4 in the afternoon, as we started our descent, the hills were covered in mist. 

The tourist is tired but full. My eyes took in so much I ended up not taking that many photographs. 

P/s The inn we are staying at has 3 very inquisitive cats that will meow at the door and visit to play.

Village life

You can't experience village life without animals. 

Our inn is in a village not too far from the reservoir DuiHeKo. There are 3 small inns in the village and perhaps 40 other village houses, some abandoned and most looking so dilapidated we thought they are abandoned! It would be nice to renovate one and run it as an artist residency.

Our inn has 3 cats. The ragdoll is called Ingot, the tabby WuKong and the large male ginger Small Monkey. Our inn also has chickens and ducks. The inn down the road has a corgi called Lele. 

This morning, we took a misty walk along the village road. The corgi Lele bounded up to us and waddled ahead, accompanying us all the way, even as the road came to an end and transitioned into an "ancient" path into the bamboo forest. 

The village felt deserted. Other than the barks of a sad brown dog inside one compound, we only heard chickens and the incessant honking of a pair of geese in the village drain. 

Up on the bamboo trees, invisible birds would sing. Yesterday I did saw a pair of magpie robins on the road and what looks and sounds like a kind of bulbul. And last night, out on the inn's balcony, we heard bats screeching. 

In the afternoon, we took a car to a completely gentrified village 30min away. It has many cafes (including a Luckin, a Starbucks and a Chagee), and even bookshops. I had a pourover Yunnan coffee in a minimalist cafe above a very trendy souvenir shop.

On the streets of this gentrified village we saw many Chinese couples with pedigree dogs in doggy clothes and doggy prams. We also saw several mangy strays which Wykidd fed with my leftover lunch. It's an animals' tale of 2 villages.

Dog from another inn taking Wykidd for a walk through the village.

Woman in Shanghai walking her pet Alpaca for a walk.