What's Up Al ? 遊記隨筆 生活點滴

Wu Yuan (婺源) - nestled in the southern corner of Jiang Xi Province (江西) would be our playground for a few days as around a 20 KM radius of this understated yet beautiful county, we would visit the "most beautiful collection of villages in China", the Wolong National Park (臥龍谷) and the colorful limestone caves of 靈岩洞. But first thing first, we took the bullet train from Shenzhen (深圳) to Wu Yuan with an over night stop in Fuzhou (福州) and the average speed of the bullet train was running at around 300 KM per hour - fast, efficient and comfortable. Mind you, although the train was running at such high speed, we marveled the passing farmlands and cities without feeling any dizziness as apparently the windows were designed with special glasses to reduce travel sickness !

We spent four days cosy-ed up in this pleasant county and took our time in exploring the sleepy villages nearby of 思溪、延村、李坑、汪口、江灣、江嶺、曉起; each village had something different to offer - nostalgia, sheer beauty, aesthetic Hui-styled architecture (徽派建築) and endless Royal Chrysanthemum (皇菊) bright golden flower fields in full bloom. We took a bus to the nearby Wolong National Park and hiked up and down the valley along the river bed and encountered a series of spectacular waterfalls of all shapes and sizes - gushing, petite, roaring, trickling, deafening, moody, hanging and of course supreme pristine fresh air - full of charged ions ! On the next day, an hour's bus ride took us to the limestone caves of 靈岩洞 and we were not expecting much as we had been to a few of these caves before on various occasions, but we were happily surprised by the excellent boat ride at the end of our cave expedition (led by an informative lady guide) which sped us through colorfully lit, but still spooky underground waterways and we felt like James Bond being chased down by some villains - exhilarating and adrenaline-charged, we now felt ready to tackle our next part of this journey - the daunting and sacred Jiu Hua Shan Mountains (九華山).