Lao Shan

We took a mini-bus tour to the mountain range of which Lao Shan is the most famous and prominent peak. The next time, if there ever is one, I'd take a regular bus as, after the usual frustrating stops at souvenir shops (one of which was a dried fish emporium which stank putridly), and being hassled constantly by a skinny, bespectacled nerd of a guide with a yellow flag, who clapped his hands continuously crying 'Lai lai lai lai lai!', with a disproportionate sense of his own self-worth, we were left with only one and a half hours on the mountain itself, which isn't nearly enough.

In fact, the mountain range covers an impressive 400 square kilometres, and lies just over one hour (if you're not on a tour bus) from Qingdao, along the coast road of the narrow, stunning peninsula on which the city sits. Lao Shan, in ancient China, was believed to be the home of the Immortals. Apparently there used to be 72 temples dotted around the mountains here, but nearly all of them were razed to the ground during the Cultural Revolution. I formed an image in my mind of a bunch of uneducated teenage Red Guards running amok in the mountains, hell-bent on mindless destruction in honour of Mao, grabbing and smashing artefacts and treasures more ancient and important than they could ever imagine. I looked at my novelty Mao watch, and decided to smash it at the first opportunity.

We climbed rough stone steps which seemed to go on for so long we wouldn't have been surprised if we'd ended up in the clouds, bumping into a few of those old Immortal guys. The mountains are stunning, gnarled, knobbly, their bent, aged peaks seeming to nod and watch as you climb, as if the mountains are old men with a million secrets, and a knowledge you will never know. The summits are set off to spectacular effect by deep gorges, bamboo groves, trickling rivers and a hundred foot-high waterfall that drops into a deep pool over smoothed ivory-white sandstone. On either side of the paths up lie massive yellow boulders, perched precariously, as if at one touch of a finger you could start an avalanche of ten-tonne rocks. At the top of the first climb lies an old temple, perhaps left standing by the Red Guards in the knowledge that they would some day be able to charge an entrance fee to it from Capitalist Roaders and Foreign Devils.

We climbed on for another mile or so, the steps petering out to become a wild dirt path, then began to run out of time. We stopped at a huge boulder, flat as a tabletop, which we used as a viewpoint to take in the mountains and sea below. The sea had taken an azure sparkle that merged seamlessly in a pale, blurred, china-white horizon with the cloudless sunny sky. There were no other tourists here, no souvenir stalls. I didn't need any more Taoist trinkets or fake-gold smiling Buddha's. This was my temple: nature at its most awesome. I reflected that this was the first time since I'd arrived in China I'd been up a mountain with a view of the sea. The scene unfurled over me like a soft white sheet on a clean bed: warm sunshine, mountains, sea and peace, acres of space and fresh air between me and the dirty, over-populated, manic bustle of developing China.