Taoist culture

Ever since Ge Hong, a former senior official of the Jin Dynasty (265-420), left his office and came to the Sanqing Mountain to make pills of immortality, the mountain gradually became a holy place for those who believed in Taoism.

This reached its climax in the Tang (618-907) and Song dynasties (960-1279), when Taoism was revered as a state religion, as the construction of Taoist buildings on the Sanqing Mountain entered an unprecedented period of growth.

Over the past 1,600 years, a large number of ancient Taoist buildings and cultural relics have been well preserved on the mountain. The ancient building complex has a carefully planned pattern.

In addition to its natural landscape and Taoist buildings, Sanqing Mountain also boasts a high-altitude cableway that measures 2,426 meters in length, the longest in China.

In the past, there were only mountain paths used by woodcutters, herb diggers and Taoists, making it extremely difficult for tourists to climb to the top of the mountain.

To make the journey to the top easier, the administrators of the mountain invested more than 20 million yuan (US$2.9 million) in 2002 to build the cableway along the face of the cliffs. Sitting in the cable cars, visitors steadily rise higher and higher, like fairies flying in the air. Pines and cypresses of verdant green, cliff-side waterfalls and springs are all clearly seen.

How to get there

Go to Nanchang by train or plane. Take a bus from Nanchang to Yushan, and then another from Yushan to Sanqing Mountain.

(Shenzhen Daily June 2, 2008)