Follow the winding road and turn off by the ancient temple. Past the pigs and geese, past the manic dog, lips drawn back and snarling, in his iron cage, if you're lucky.
Then past the womb-shaped burial plots of the two cemeteries where families come to remember and feast their dead, burning fat sticks of smoky incense to carry their prayers to heaven. Leaving offerings of wine, rice-cakes and fruit, which the dogs will come to consume in the evening or the next day; leaving lavish hell-money for elder brothers, sons, fathers, daughters and grandmothers to spend in the afterlife.
On and past the wet emerald rice-paddies, bordered by thickets of young and old bamboo that creaks and snaps in the afternoon breeze; over the crumbling old stone bridge in its patchwork of yellow l
ichen and moss, beneath which the silver stream gurgles and splashes over miniature forests and kingdoms, set in clear sunlit pools where dragon flies hover in a gauzy, jewel-winged ballet.
Lizards bask immobile in the heat, past a lone, sprawling farmhouse, where an old Chinaman sits playing loud pi pa music on a record player filling the valley with sound. Past the red and black lacquered wayside Taoist shrine with its friendly little stove and blocks of green and black tea for travellers to refresh themselves, and up, up, up the narrow winding track that skirts the edge of the hills, where tiered conifers lift redolent trunks and sheaves of needles to the sky; past secluded sylvan glades full of golden sunlight and silence, where white and turquoise butterflies cluster over tiny yellow and pink flowers, their billowy soft wings lavishly painted with suns, eyes, and moons that blink and wink and glitter in the scented air.
The quiet crowns of rounded hills carpeted in pine needles, guarded by the sentinel trees that softly commune with each other or gently sway in deep arboreal meditation, nodding beneath the noon day sun, or wide awake beneath frosty stars.
On, finally, past the clear blue tarn of the mountain lake; extended and dammed to make a reservoir, where wooden statues of Gods and Immortals, guardians of the popular lake-side tea-house, are reflected upside down in the mirrors of the untrou
bled water; brightly painted in ceremonial colours of crimson, viridian green, cobalt blue, yellow and gold.
Coming down again, I disturb a long fat snake sunning itself on the road, its dusky scaled body as thick as my arm, it coils lazily into the undergrowth and I continue my descent.
Baguio City. Michael Willowdown© <
Then past the womb-shaped burial plots of the two cemeteries where families come to remember and feast their dead, burning fat sticks of smoky incense to carry their prayers to heaven. Leaving offerings of wine, rice-cakes and fruit, which the dogs will come to consume in the evening or the next day; leaving lavish hell-money for elder brothers, sons, fathers, daughters and grandmothers to spend in the afterlife.
On and past the wet emerald rice-paddies, bordered by thickets of young and old bamboo that creaks and snaps in the afternoon breeze; over the crumbling old stone bridge in its patchwork of yellow l
ichen and moss, beneath which the silver stream gurgles and splashes over miniature forests and kingdoms, set in clear sunlit pools where dragon flies hover in a gauzy, jewel-winged ballet. Lizards bask immobile in the heat, past a lone, sprawling farmhouse, where an old Chinaman sits playing loud pi pa music on a record player filling the valley with sound. Past the red and black lacquered wayside Taoist shrine with its friendly little stove and blocks of green and black tea for travellers to refresh themselves, and up, up, up the narrow winding track that skirts the edge of the hills, where tiered conifers lift redolent trunks and sheaves of needles to the sky; past secluded sylvan glades full of golden sunlight and silence, where white and turquoise butterflies cluster over tiny yellow and pink flowers, their billowy soft wings lavishly painted with suns, eyes, and moons that blink and wink and glitter in the scented air.
The quiet crowns of rounded hills carpeted in pine needles, guarded by the sentinel trees that softly commune with each other or gently sway in deep arboreal meditation, nodding beneath the noon day sun, or wide awake beneath frosty stars.
On, finally, past the clear blue tarn of the mountain lake; extended and dammed to make a reservoir, where wooden statues of Gods and Immortals, guardians of the popular lake-side tea-house, are reflected upside down in the mirrors of the untrou
bled water; brightly painted in ceremonial colours of crimson, viridian green, cobalt blue, yellow and gold.Coming down again, I disturb a long fat snake sunning itself on the road, its dusky scaled body as thick as my arm, it coils lazily into the undergrowth and I continue my descent.
Baguio City. Michael Willowdown© <
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