SanTiaoLing

You would think that with the issues of the last week and the picture in the last post (around 1am) that today might be a wash. Wrong. A very nice adventure was had after getting off the slow train (redundant!- there is no express train) to SanTiaoLing…

It is about an hour to here by train and is only $3 round-trip (but the taxi to the train station was $4). Disappointingly it was not much of a train, more like a subway but with none of the comfort or glamor you expect from big city mass transit. This is not forest but real jungle -thick with tropical plants, bamboo, lots of snakes, rumored monkeys and strange-sounding birds and insects. The hills are extremely steep and it rains a lot so there are lots of waterfalls. I had an old English guide-book that turned out to be remarkably accurate, problem was that it did not warn me about the unleashed dogs guarding the occasional residence that the trail went past-so I only heard the waterfalls, I did not see any. Still, it was a real change from my usual hike. The end of October: warm, steamy and lots of plants starting to flower.

Flora

Coal train coming through

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