12 Vauclusian Springs/12 Dragon Falls, Tong'an

Impressive name, right? Even the native-English-speaking writer of our guide book had to look up "vauclusian." (though I cannot find it in any dictionary, bound or online!) It supposedly means "a spring rising up a deep, steeply-inclined, water-filled passage into a small surface pool" (quoted from Magic Xiamen, William Brown, also quoted from an unnamed source in the book!). So, this sounded interesting and was said to be located "near Film City," see previous post. We hoped the driver would be able to find this place since we wanted to see some more sites while we had the chance and also were ready for something natural after all the Chinese replicas. Well, apparently, "near" is a relative term since we got a bit lost and had to ask directions three times before we finally arrived at the waterfall park. As in many locations around the world, the powers that be were not content to just let nature be the main attraction. Hence, the first photo of a huge, stone gate that is being erected, replacing the smaller, painted gate where we entered and paid our buck or two entrance fee.
This appears to be a new path, nice and wide, and all to ourselves! Amanda and Gene forged ahead to get a closer look at the new statue that is over-looking the new gate. A bit of culture that we did not expect to see at a waterfall site. Notice the long shadows of late afternoon. Still quite warm but not so crazy-hot like the summer months. This early October day felt like a middle-of-the-summer Michigan day!
We made it to the giant statue and I wish I could tell you something about it. Alas, I cannot read Chinese characteres, so the pictures will have to suffice. This guy (I don't think it's a Buddah, but may be Confusious?) must've been pretty great because the statue was immense!
Here's the perspective shot--Gene is 6'2", to give you an idea of the size. Kind of puts Albertus Van Raalte's statue in Centennial Park to shame...but that's a free park, so we won't complain.
On with the hike. Another wide path and view of the top of the mountain. Looked pretty daunting to me but none of us knew what to expect or when we'd reach the waterfall, so we just ambled along. By the way, the driver, Mr. Chen, joined us on our trek. This was pretty exciting because he usually just stays with the van and reads or naps or something. We feel a bit guilty about that and were glad that he seemed to be enjoying this outing, though we had to judge by his body language since at this point we still only knew about 3 words of Chinese, none of them terribly useful.
We came upon the first of the shallow pools after climbing some steep, uneven, concrete stairs and promptly took a rest. We inadvertently shooed away a young couple from the area. It was pretty, but we thought this couldn't be all there was to see since the guide book said the falls were 1 km long (along with not speaking or reading Chinese, I also do not speak or understand kilometers, kilograms or celcius!!).
So we climbed more stairs. Liz did not enjoy this very much but she was a trooper and mostly kept up with the group.
Aha! More falls and more pools and tons of rock. I did not get a good picture of it, but there was also a small temple on a rock outcrop overlook, along with a metal basket contraption along the handrail. We watched as people placed lit ropes of firecrackers of the loud-noise-making variety into the basket. Then we retreated as the smoke choked us and the firecrackers deafened us! The noise echoed across the rocks and down the mountain and hopefully pleased the gods because it did not please us! Sort of ruined the peaceful scene, actually. There was also a hut of sorts for burning pretend money, sending the smoke upward towards the gods (obviously I don't know much about these traditions and I mean no disrespect, I just didn't like all that noise and smoke!)
More beautiful rocks and falls. We came across a few more groups of people and, as is typical here, observed the women teetering up the stairs in 3-inch heels. I was getting pretty woozy in my walking shoes so I don't know how they did it, but it explains the nicely shaped calves they all seem to have.
A bit closer to the peak...this was about as far as we went. We surmised from the map that there was quite a bit more trail up ahead and Gene said he would've liked to go all the way, but the rest of us were not game for that and we knew it was going to be getting dark before too long. I found out later that some teachers from the international school had gone camping up there and shared a camping area of sorts with some local campers, snakes and rats. No, thank you! (I'm sure the people were fine, but not the creatures.)

One last view down the mountain. I wish the pictures had captured the beauty better. It was a worthwhile trip, though tiring, and we're glad we were able to visit some nice local places during our mid-Autumn vacation.