To Wutaishan – Amazing temples! – Part 5

After another lot of farewells I got a lift to the subway, first time in a car since leaving home.
The night train to Wutaishan left at 11pm for the 5 hour journey. It was relatively comfy considering it was meant to be a hard sleeper; I was on the top bunk, the cheapest bed.
Plenty of time to think on these night trains…was this trip what I had expected? Mostly yes but probably harder. Life is going to have its ups and downs wherever you are and not as easy when you are tired. The travelling is tiring and the effort of making myself understood, trying to find places and being cautious of how much I am spending can be draining. However, I do like the freedom with the obvious restrictions of my finances and visa expiry date. I just need to balance and prioritise – hopefully this will be the most difficult part of my entire trip and every challenge makes me stronger. I do go through times of missing family and feeling lonely but then I meet English speaking people and I’m fine again. I was woken at 4am and with a little difficulty managed to get my connecting bus. Hadn’t a clue whether I was right but by this time I was too tired to bother. I would end up somewhere. The journey was quite slow because of ice; they got ice chains out but then decided they didn’t need them.

I arrived in Wutaishan to fantastic weather, clear skies, no pollution and great views.
This area is known as the most holy land of Chinese Buddhism and I spent ages wandering through the many (47) temples, fascinated by the praying monks and all surrounded by the most amazing mountainous scenery, ‘a masterpiece of exquisite acts of nature’ listed in the top 10 scenic spots in Shanxi Province – not so easy finding my way out again though! After a couple of days exploring the mountains I used another overnight train to Xi’an.