Dragon Boat holiday in Shenzhen
Saturday, 24 June 2023, Dragon Boat Festival holiday.
Wutong Mountain, the highest peak in Pengcheng: coming to Shenzhen without climbing Greater Wutong feels like meeting someone you care about and never going up to speak to them. Shenzhen has plenty of hills. My impression was of a city built among them, although I had only passed through one corner and had not reached its heart. The hills are thick with vegetation, as full of life as the city itself. Buses run late in Shenzhen; even at eleven at night, there is no feeling that the city is going to bed, and many adults are still out strolling with their children.
I took the metro at about half past seven in the morning. As Nongfu puts it, in Shenzhen every day except the actual holiday is a working day. The morning rush-hour train was not crowded, but something made me curious: nobody was walking on the escalators. People stood wherever they liked, on either side.
Used to Beijing’s metro, I usually stand on the right or walk up the left. Yet in fast-paced Shenzhen nobody was hurrying up the escalator. A film playing on the carriage television answered my question. Through interviews and explanations, it said that walking on the left and standing on the right puts uneven loads on an escalator and increases the likelihood of faults. It therefore recommended standing securely and holding the handrail.
I got off at Shenwai Senior Campus station, took Exit C, ate breakfast at a shop beneath the housing estate and then started climbing.
There were few people on the road, perhaps because it had been raining so much recently. Everything was wet. Huge spiders hung among the roadside branches, three sizes bigger than the ones on Beijing’s Xiangshan in autumn. One evening while I was walking in Donghu Park, a couple were ahead of me on the boardwalk when the wife suddenly cried, ‘Snake!’ Shenzhen evidently has a very good natural environment. I had better stick to Wutong Mountain’s scenic-area paths and leave the forest’s residents undisturbed.
Up Xiutong Trail
Paths run all over Wutong Mountain. I climbed Xiutong Trail from the Yantian Management Station entrance to Greater Wutong. One sentence describes it: a staircase straight to the top.
Xiutong Trail is an unbroken flight of steps, with no respite. Whenever you look up, more steps lead into the woods above. Below 600 metres, the steps are neatly laid stone bricks; between there and 800 metres, they become large stone steps with a considerable rise between them. Only beyond 800 metres does the slope ease.
After I had climbed for over half an hour, heavy rain suddenly began. I happened to reach a toilet and sheltered inside with two young women. After ten minutes or so, it eased and I set off with my umbrella. The rain varied in strength but never stopped; above 800 metres, particularly, a downpour could arrive at any moment. The wind rose. A moment earlier I had felt as though a small furnace was burning inside me; now I was a little cold. I swapped my umbrella for a raincoat. As a ‘rain god’, taking a full set of rain gear out is a survival instinct. After all, I have been caught halfway by a downpour in the hottest weather and cycled home shivering.
I thought this would be another day of seeing mountains through mist. But on a flat patch at 900 metres, the rain paused and the mist blew away. Just for that moment, I saw Yantian Port.
Down past the temple and gardens
Visitors were gathered around the rock marked ‘Pengcheng’s Highest Peak’. I climbed over the rock and headed down. Inevitably, there were more steps, but abundant birdsong in the woods helped distract me from the mechanical descent.
The steps led to Haohanpo Square, where the way to Shenzhen Television Tower became a broad road with many people strolling. From the tower to Hongfa Temple, the steps went downhill and almost nobody was around, so I did not dare explore the two caves I saw. Hongfa Temple is large and busy with worshippers; a self-service machine at the entrance lets you scan a code for free incense. Inside, it feels unfamiliar because Hongfa has no long history: it was built after the founding of New China. There are no Buddhist temples like this elsewhere in the country. It seems to have good relations with Nepal, with several posters advertising organised exchange trips there.
Leaving Hongfa Temple, you pass through a very large botanical garden. Along both sides of the road are themed gardens, including a Buddhist pine garden, a bonsai garden and an aquatic plant area. I was hurrying elsewhere and regretted not exploring properly. Northern and southern plants differ greatly: I had never seen the plants growing beside the road, and there must be still more unfamiliar living things inside the gardens.
Soon I reached the metro station. The end.
(Author: 七末)