Lost on Yellow Mountain: On the Merits of Wandering

While little known in the West, Huangshan is a culturally significant site that is a strong draw for Chinese tourists. Located in Anhui province in central China, it is a "small city" by Chinese standards with 1.4 million people. While there are many attractions in the city, the major draw is the Yellow Mountain itself, made famous by thousands of years of depictions in art and poetry. Countless people per year come to the city with tourist groups that lead them right up the mountain in hopes of seeing the "sea of clouds" that forms if the weather is just right.

I was not one of these countless people. Rather, I went to Huangshan by myself, found a path into the mountain range, walked through the valleys for seven-odd hours and returned to the hotel by some quirk of chance and fate.

This has always been my approach to tourism - forego the hot spots in favor of idle wandering. It's not going to be for everyone. For the kind of person who's scared to death of traveling alone, it probably won't work. For the one who only leaves home to leverage FOMO on their blog, I can't promise you'll find anything that will make your friends jealous - but that's part of the joy of it. This sort of expedition is intensely personal. It's a quieter way to see the world.

The road was certainly quiet that morning - a welcome break from the manic rush of the Spring Festival, the world's largest human migration. A chill fog hung over the mountains, the clouds in the overcast sky so low that you could scrape them with your fingertips if you stretched enough. The path vanished both before and behind me - past and future alike obscured, walking in one eternal moment.

The walk was tranquil compared to what I would have faced on Yellow Mountain proper, but I was far from alone. The road winding through She County is dotted by villages, one every kilometer or so. Each was alive with activity - children throwing noisemakers, people playing majiang, the sounds of the New Year gala replaying on a hundred television sets.

I couldn't exactly blend in - it's surely unusual to see an outsider come walking down the road, especially one who looks like me. An old man asked me if I'd eaten - not an invitation as you might think, but a common greeting in China. A couple brought out their young daughter to show off her English. These aren't necessarily unusual occurrences in this country, but they were all the more bracing within those isolated valleys.

Yet most of the walk was still solitary - just me and my meager provisions, a bag of granola and a few water bottles. A hike can be a form of walking meditation, a release from everything - social, structural, emotional - that might block your thoughts.

The square around my hotel, which the night before had been desolate for the reunion dinner, was fully alive upon my return. There were stands offering local foods, green tea (the local huangshan maofeng being a famous strain), wood carvings, and other various and sundry gifts. It was a welcome sight after walking nearly 20 miles by myself.

The following day, as I awaited my train back to Hefei City, I was struck by inspiration from that walk. Sitting on the ground with one of the seats as a makeshift desk, I wrote the short story "The Path in the Dragon's Wake" in one uninterrupted burst. It's rare that I have so little difficulty with my prose, but the experience opened me up.

Willfully getting lost is a trial, one that's not what most people are looking for on vacation. For a select few, though, it's the only way to travel. It's the best way to learn - and if you're not learning from your time abroad, then you're doing it wrong.