Super Traveler Xu Xiake, "Brave as a tiger, dexterous as a gibbon."

World's fastest train aside, travel in China is still not quick and easy. The newly arrived expat who blithely plans a weekend trip to Xi'an ("It's only two hours by plane!") has no idea of all the time-traps in his path. Then again, traveling China at the end of the Ming Dynasty was a sight tougher, what with no C-trip and other inconveniences.

That didn't stop Xu Xiake from traveling the length and breadth of China for most of his life, leaving home at 23 and returning at last thirty one years later to die, body ravaged but spirit unbowed. Historians since have praised Xu Xiake for his bravery and tenacity, scaling mountains and blazing trails alone in all seasons, and somehow managing to record it all in a massive travel diary of more than half a million words. Here are some excerpts and pictures of the places he visited.

After nineteen days I reached Huangzong Tian, a small village of Zhengzhou in Henan. Here I went up the stone slope on the right of the village, and viewed Shengseng Chi (Holy Monk's Pool), which is a pool from a spring, collecting its clear green water halfway up the hill.

Xianglu Shan, Incense Burner Mountain

This mountain is shaped like an inverted incense burner with its three legs sticking up in the sky. Surrounding it are other mountains, charming the visitor with their gently beautiful colors. The bottom of the gorge is filled with masses of  stones with the color of purple jade, rocky cliffs rising on both sides. As I walked through the gorge, I imagined how beautiful it must look when filled with a clear torrent spurting pearls and jets of water.

Near Yongchang, having lost what little money he had
and having had to sell some of his clothes:               

After spending a long period in a malarial region, my head and limbs were covered in spots which gathered up in piles in the folds of my skin, while  my left ear and left foot twitched from time to time. Two weeks before, I had thought it was a parasite but in fact there was none. When I arrived here, I knew it was feng, and that I was suffering from a lack of medicine. The water in this hot spring was deep and simmering with medicinal herbs, so I soaked and steamed myself for a long time. The sweat poured off me like rain. This was an excellent way of curing feng: having had the good fortune to come across this hot spring so suddenly, I knew  there was a good chance of clearing up my illness.

Tianxian Yuan, Heavenly Goddess' Temple

The celebrated white pine is in the court at the rear of the temple. Legend has it that the three maidens shed their mortal bodies here. It takes four people with outstretched arms to surround the mighty trunk of this pine, from which three huge branching trunks shoot clear up out of a circle of stone railings into the clouds. The bark is as smooth as congealed lard and its whiteness is like face powder. To the north is a pavilion with poems of appreciation written all over it, and there I lingered a long while. Looking down where the gorge makes an abrupt drop, I saw water dripping from an overhanging crag...

 In central Guizhou

For a while a soft rain had been falling on the deserted road, then suddenly the wind was rushing and the rain pouring. The two of us stumbling through deep mountains and remote paths could feel the numinosity of the setting with the sound of the stream and the shadows of the trees.

 Songshan

Its highest pinnacle was entirely cleft from the northern side, so there was absolutely no way to cross. Peeping down, however, I espied a connecting trail, so I took off my gown and followed it till I reached the top. There I viewed the nine hills of the southern peak standing erectly in front of me. Half of the crags back of the northern peak turned round from behind, appearing bottomless.

As I stood there taking in the view, a sudden blast of wind nearly swept me off. Turning northeast from the South Castle, I descended the earthen hill and saw big impressions of tiger's paws. Walking another five or six li in the tall brushwood, I reached a thatched house where I made a fire in the stones and cooked some rice gruel. After several bowls of it, both hunger and thirst were gone.

Tiantai Mountain

I returned to the temple for meal. And after it, I looked for a raft to cross a stream. Walking along the stream at the foot of the mountain, I found steep cliffs and overhanging rocks all around about with trees and vines twisting and droopling on them, most of which were crabapples andd redbuds. They cast their shadows down over the stream. Gusts of winds blew over, giving out fragrance of magnolias.

Before I realized it that I had come to the entrance to the mountain. The rocks upward straightly came out of the bottom of the stream, with torrent deep running swiftly. There saw no land around them. Holes which could only hold half of a man's toes had been bored on the rocks so that travelers could cilmb up easily. With my back bent, I began to climb up with great great horror.

Wutai Shan

A windstorm arose, but each drop of rain that fell changed into ice. When the wind fell, the sun appeared, like a bead of fire looming suddenly through the jade-blue leaves.  About three miles farther, I climbed the highest peak on the Southern Terrace, where a stupa containing a relic of Manjusri stood. Facing north, the other terraces were arrayed in a circle; only to the southeast and the southwest was there a little open space.

 
The Wuding, now known as the Yongding River

Remembering all my lost letters, I feared my family already thought I was a lost soul on the banks of the Wuding River. If I were to send a letter home, to let them know I am still alive, would it not just cause them to start worrying again?

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