My attempt to get the the Tunpu Village of Tianlong today turned into a bit more of an adventure then planned. I started by taking a photo of a page from trip adviser which lists the address in Chinese, In my hung over state I thought that with this alone I would be able to get a taxi directly their and avoid the bus station. When I was dropped off I looked around and decided that this area didn't look at all like what I was expecting, after asking a bakery shop owner it was explained to me that the address was here, but the name was not. According to him the only way out of where I was at was by motorbike.
My conversation with the nearest motorbike driver gave me the impression he could take me somewhere with a temple, considering my lack of other options this sounded great, and who knows maybe this is a temple at Tianlong I thought. As we finally pulled up to the attraction, what I saw did not look bad at all: A temple, sitting atop a tall thin cone shaped mountain, surrounded at the base by an ancient Ming dynasty village (Turns out this was called Yunfeng Tunpu). The motorcycle driver offered to wait for me while I visited however I decided to pay him and find my own way back, in order to avoid him making up some outrageous number for his rate later.
Inside the village there was one main pathway between the mountains, and village houses built up around this diagonally into the sides of the slope. From various points you can see some incredibly majestic views of both the beauty of the village architecture and it's coexistence with nature. As I walked around there were no tourist shops or anything like this, just a few locals going to and fro and one kid who kept lighting firecrackers in the main square for some reason.
In the center of the village starts a zig zaggy path which goes up the mountainside toward the temple above. The shape of the mountain was daunting enough that I explored some extra parts of the village in order to procrastinate the climb as long as possible, but eventually I gave in. It took a good 20 minutes to make my way all the way up to the top, at which you find a Buddha statue to greet you and a little monastery. There are decks here from which you can look down in awe at the valley, which during this day was covered with a layer of fog which made the view somewhat enchanting.
After I came back down I set out to find a ride onto the place I was originally trying to go. I walked around the premises for a couple minutes, not really noticing any buses, bus stops, taxis, or even motorbikes. Eventually as I was walking by a parking ticket booth, I heard some girls yell an English "Hello" at me. After about 10 minutes of broken Chinese we got through all the questions, "where are you from?","are you alone?", "how did you get here?", "why don't you have a phone?". My situation appeared incredibly amusing to them, but once they realized I was truly 100% stuck, they worked quickly to track down a taxi driver for me using wechat.
30 minutes later I was at Tianlong. As it was late in the day, most of the store fronts were closing, so I walked the recommended tourist loop and observed the architecture of the town while gnawing on some fried sausage. This was mildly interesting, however compared to previous village this wasn't appearing quite as genuine, maybe one day before buses came here it was more authentic, but it appears this place has already degenerated into a modern tourist attraction.
My conversation with the nearest motorbike driver gave me the impression he could take me somewhere with a temple, considering my lack of other options this sounded great, and who knows maybe this is a temple at Tianlong I thought. As we finally pulled up to the attraction, what I saw did not look bad at all: A temple, sitting atop a tall thin cone shaped mountain, surrounded at the base by an ancient Ming dynasty village (Turns out this was called Yunfeng Tunpu). The motorcycle driver offered to wait for me while I visited however I decided to pay him and find my own way back, in order to avoid him making up some outrageous number for his rate later.
Inside the village there was one main pathway between the mountains, and village houses built up around this diagonally into the sides of the slope. From various points you can see some incredibly majestic views of both the beauty of the village architecture and it's coexistence with nature. As I walked around there were no tourist shops or anything like this, just a few locals going to and fro and one kid who kept lighting firecrackers in the main square for some reason.
30 minutes later I was at Tianlong. As it was late in the day, most of the store fronts were closing, so I walked the recommended tourist loop and observed the architecture of the town while gnawing on some fried sausage. This was mildly interesting, however compared to previous village this wasn't appearing quite as genuine, maybe one day before buses came here it was more authentic, but it appears this place has already degenerated into a modern tourist attraction.
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