Stairway to heaven
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The Taoist legacy is everywhere. Even the mountain's triple peaks are said to represent the religion's "three pure ones", the highest powers in the Taoist pantheon. Such designations are commonplace among the mountain's bewilderingly organic rock formations. "Taoist Priest Worshipping the Moon", "The Monkey King Appreciating Treasures" and "Goddess Delivering Children" are just three of the more bizarre appellations ascribed to the surrounding lower peaks by several centuries of imaginative visitors.
Circling the mountain requires a full day trip, ideally with a lunchtime stopover at one of the mountain's restaurants. The views are never less than beguiling, though the occasional narrowness of the path and the ever-present proximity of a potential plummet may discourage the faint-hearted.
For those visitors to China familiar only with the waiguoren-by-the-wagonload nature of Shanghai or Beijing, a trip to an attraction like Sanqingshan may prove enlightening. Here you will still be novel enough to attract an enthusiastic "hello" from many a passing schoolkid, keen to put into practice their classroom English, but too shy to attempt more than a fleeting greeting.
Their bolder middle-school counterparts are more likely to maneuver you into a fingers-aloft mountain view photo-op.
"It's like you are a celebrity or a god," mused one of our party wonderingly, after our fifth or sixth photocall.
"A visiting Taoist deity?" I ventured lightly.
"No," he said, frowning slightly, "they tend to be tall and lean ..."
"Maybe Buddha ..." another volunteered brightly.
Even atop a holy mountain, it's sometimes all too easy to be brought down to earth.
