Mind-Consoling Stone forests and Heaven's Gate

The shuttle bus pulled up in the parking lot, and we filed out. A short distance away, a train awaited us. Many people, fanning out in all directions, aimed their cameras at the distant protuberances of stone columns. Ah Chao, our tour guide, gave each of us a train ticket. When everyone boarded the train, it set off at a moderate speed towards our destination. The moment it travelled through the stone forest, we were hemmed in by stone columns on both sides of the track. From their lush forest bed, they rose to an average height of over a hundred feet.

 The train had been wonderfully designed for sightseeing. The side windows, combined with the transparent walls and ceiling, afforded a full view of the stone columns. I craned my neck and hungrily took in the sight with squinted eyes. Despite the low, nippy morning temperature, the sun shone brightly through the beautifully sculpted clouds of the wintry sky. The entire spread of the stone forest looked like the unending scroll of a Chinese ink painting. No wonder the locals call the tourist hotspot ‘Ten-Mile Gallery’. It is one of the main features of Wulingyuan, the national park of Zhangjiajie in Hunan. According to Ah Chao, the stone columns had interesting characteristics: some looked like Zhu Bajie, a mythical pig-faced character in the legend ‘Journey to the West’, some resembled a trio of sisters sending their husbands off and some brought to mind a woman carrying a baby in her arms.

               

              A desperate urge to escape my cocoon of depression had brought me from Miri to Hunan. Its unique landscape offered me a welcoming respite from the concrete, workaday drabness where I worked and lived. Every minute of the train ride was filled with excitement, and the thrill continued with a sightseeing trek through a neighbouring stretch of stone forest in the afternoon. Seeing the stone pillars at such close proximity elicited many ‘wows’ from us. How omnipotent is God!

                                                     

The trail through the stone forest was mostly steep, and it occasionally evened out to lessen the strain on our bodies. I puffed and panted along the way, but my spirits were kept buoyant by the verdant world around us. Each time we stopped at a lookout platform, we would take a rest, recharge our bodies with fluids and snap scores of pictures. The higher we climbed, the grander the view became. The craggy peak of almost every rock column was crowned with gnarled old trees. I could not help wondering what had made them hold sway for so long atop the stone pillars. The more I sweated, the less I focused on my problems. Towards the end of our climb, we were delighted to see that it had begun to snow. Every snowflake that fell on our faces was like an angel’s kiss.

               

              In addition to the stone forest, we visited Longwandong, an underground cavern which was another main attraction of Wulingyuan, Chairman Mao’s residence in Shaoshan, a tribal village and a museum, but none of them impressed me as much as the stone forest. The day before we left for Miri, we visited Tianmenshan, a tourist site in Yongding District, which also left a lasting memory in my mind.

               

              To get to Tianmenshan, we had to embark on a thirty-minute ride on a cableway which was reputedly the longest in the world. From our cable car, my tour-mates and I could get a bird’s eye view of the town below. Tianmenshan, which literally means heaven’s gate mountain, was named after an arch in the wall at the mountaintop. When we reached the other end of the cableway station, we spiralled our way up to the summit in a bus. I was dizzy throughout the drive. Without my mint sweet, I would have thrown up and made a mess. My dizziness dissipated when we reached the beautiful site. I was overwhelmed by the grandeur of the arch. It could be reached by climbing a stairway with a hundred steps. Unluckily for us, the arch was out of bounds for tourists because the stairway was coated with slippery frost. Despite the setback, we were happy to admire the pristine scenery around us. There was a temple nearby, and some Buddhist tour-mates offered incense and libations in it.

               

               The arch was silhouetted majestically against the blue sky, and the piercing rays of sunlight shot through the mountain hollow like gold-hued lances. Shrouded in shimmering brightness, the arch indeed looked like a gateway to heaven. I told myself that I would return to Tianmenshan one day, climb the hundred-step stairway and enjoy an up-close experience under the arch.

“How fun is our trip to Hunan!” a tour-mate named Zhang said. “We will return to Malaysia around this time tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” agreed his daughter. “We will go back to face the same workload.”

What she said made my heart sink. A gloomy feeling welled up inside me, and I sighed. Ah Nie, our other tour guide, asked me what was wrong.

“I fear the problems I will face upon my return to Miri.”

With a wave of her hand, she said, “Don’t worry! No problem lasts forever. Look at the panoramic view around you. Doesn’t it make your problems seem little?”

On our way back from Tianmenshan, Ah Nie’s advice ricocheted through my mind. When we reached the cableway station at the foothills, I looked at the distant Tianmenshan and finally understood what Ah Nie had meant. Yes, nature is vast and boundless. As long as we live, we can use any resources around us to overcome our problems, which are not as serious as we perceive them to be.