Xikou Xuedou Scenic Area

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We took the bus from Ningbo train station (988) to Fenghua. The bus driver was totally mental and drove like a maniac, which is unusual as most bus drivers are pretty good. He stopped in the middle of the road to use his phone at one point and then sailed past one of the bus stops, coming to an abrupt halt a hundred metres or so past the stop. The bus journey took about an hour and we definitely passed some of the grittier and grimier parts of Ningbo. We got off the bus in Xikou, a small town. My friend had went to high school in this town and had visited the scenic area back then so she recommended this place to us to visit. Fenghua is famous for beef noodles, and since we had arrived there at lunchtime, we went to look for some. The main street was lined with small noodle shops, but we headed to one down a side street. This place was small, but pretty busy and we were lucky to get the last table. After ordering beef noodles for us, my friend told us that she'd made a mistake, this place sold Lanzhou beef noodles, not Fenghua style ones. Anyway, the food was good and it set us up for the rest of our trip. We then took another bus, which we alighted at the Xikou Xuedou visitor centre. We headed inside and bought our tickets. They weren't cheap at 150 RMB, but it included entrance to three places on the mountain and use of the shuttle bus that take you around the scenic area. We headed out to wait for the shuttle bus that was due to depart soon. The journey up the mountain took about 10-15 minutes. It was really nice to see all the greenery around us and the mist settling on the mountains. I was surprised as I had expected it to be more remote, but the scenic area was well developed.

We alighted the bus and walked for about 5 minutes towards the temple. The bus kind of stopped in the middle of nowhere and we had no idea which way we should be heading in, but my friends overheard a tour guide telling her tour group to head left along the road to the temple, so we followed them. It was about a five minute walk to reach the temple. The temple complex was really big and it looked brand new and very well cared for. Xuedou Temple was originally founded during the Tang Dynasty. It was very well regarded in China and was one of the top ten Chan Buddhist temples. However, during the Cultural Revolution a lot of destruction was caused to the temple. It was re-built and refurbished in the 1980s and 1990s, and by the looks of it still receives a lot of money today. We headed along the path to the main hall and went in for a look around. It was pretty standard. Then we headed out to the Giant Buddha statue that is situated at the back of the temple. There were quite a few steps to climb to reach the Buddha and there were statues lining the path to guard the Buddha. The statues at the bottom of the steps were really cool as they were all a bronze color and they stood out against the dull backdrop of trees and cloud. The statues lining the path were regular stone. The steps were a bit steep and one of my friends moaned the whole way up. The statue is of Buddha Maitreya and is 33 metres high, with the platform underneath making it a total of 56.7 metres high. It is made of 1,200 tonnes of steel and tin bronze. The Buddha Maitreya is 33 metre high to imply that the Maitreya dwells at the 33rd layer of heaven as it is believed in Fenghua that the Bag Monk, the incarnation of Maitreya, died on the third day of the third lunar month. I love how all the number used inthe design of the Buddha are symbolic of something and not just random. It was really cool to see the Buddha close up. Also the view from the top of the surrounding countryside was spectacular.

Our next stop was Xuedou waterfall, so we followed the road and then a smaller path to reach the entrance way. Our tickets were scanned at the entrance and we were permitted to enter. It was a short walk to the top of the waterfall. The views of the waterfall, here, weren't too great as we were right on top of it. It was pretty scary looking over the edge and just seeing a sheer drop. There was a trail to the other side of the waterfall, so we followed that. There were a few porters with sedan chairs offering to carry us up，we declined. One of them took some photos of us on his phone, they mustn't get too many foreign tourists here. The walk didn't take too long about ten minutes or so, and the stairs weren't too steep. We came to a rest area, where we had a better view of the waterfall. It looked much better from here. Next to the waterfall, there was some text written/carved in red in the stone. I wouldn't have fancied being the person or persons' job it was to do that. They would have needed a serious head for heights. The trail continued on so we set off to see what was further along it. I think we must have walked for about another 15-20 minutes. It could have been less but the heat and humidity made it feel more torturous. We followed the trail and at the end of it there was a fairly big house nestled in the trees. We entered and had a good look around. The villa was built in 1927 by Chiang Kai-shek on top of Miaogao Terrace as the steep and high slope gives excellent views over Xikou's scenery. It was interesting to take a look around the villa and see the place that the Kuomintang had used, later on, as its headquarters. We stepped out of the villa and onto the terrace to see the nice views of the scenery around us. I wish that the weather had been a little better as it was a little rainy and overcast.

On one of the maps we had passed there appeared to be a trail that would take us to the third place on our entrance tickets without having to retrace our steps. However, that trail was closed, so we did end up gonig back the way we came. It also meant that once we left the waterfall area, we couldn't get back in. This was a bit annoying as I wished we could have taken the path that led to the bottom of the waterfall, but I don't think any of us fancied climbing down and then back up again to then visit the third place included in our ticket. We should have done the circuit in a different order finishing with the waterfall. If only we had known.

We headed over to the final place that our entrance ticket was valid for. This was the 'First Confinement House of General Chang Huseh-liang. General Chang Huseh-liang had played a part of the Xi'an Incident of 1936, which was a political crisis that took place. After the crisis, he was kidnapped and placed here under house arrest in January, 1937. The house had formerly been the Xuedou Hostel of the China Travel Agency. The original house burnt down in a fire on 7th November, 1937 and the building was not rebuilt until 1988 with government help. I enjoyed looking around the building. There was a big room that was full of information about General Chang Huseh-liang and it was interesting to read about his life. I asked my friends if they knew much about him, but they said since he had been on the losing side they didn't study him in school. It was interesting to see what the place looked like back in the day, it was a pretty big place to be under house arrest in. While I imagined it must have been pretty small for the hostel, it would be comfortable for fewer people. The house had a small garden around it and there was a statue of General Chang Huseh-liang in the front garden, too. I was happy that I learnt a small piece of Chinese history. The area was really nice and I thought it wasn't a bad place to be under house arrest.

We took the bus back down the mountain, the journey was a bit rougher going back down. Then we headed out of the park and we saw the bus back to Ningbo just ahead of us. We were lucky though as the driver was resting outside, so we only had to run the last 20 metres or so back. The journey back to Ningbo was uneventful and we headed downtown in search of some hotpot to finish the day off nicely. I'm really glad that we got to visit Xuedou Mountain. It was a place that definitely wasn't on my radar and I doubt that I ever would have come across it when doing my on research on places to visit in the area. I'm thankful to my friend for suggesting it as it was a nice, albeit brief, escape from the city.

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