When Jean-Paul Sartre wrote: "Hell is other people," he could not have foreseen People's Square metro at rush hour or perhaps Huang Shan or the Great Wall at Badaling on any given Chinese holiday.
When you live in China, you feel the weight of the population as you compete with ten people for a taxi, 30 people for squeezing-room on the metro or a hundred people in a queue at the bank, the supermarket or the hospital.
And sometimes, you really need to be completely alone. If hell is other people, then being alone is... heaven?
After hearing that Moganshan was a great place to be alone in the fresh air, a friend and I hopped on the fast train from Shanghai to Hangzhou (65 RMB each way, 1.5 hours). From Hangzhou, we caught a taxi to Moganshan (250 RMB Hangzhou to Moganshan, 1.20 hours). My friend had booked us accommodations in one of the eco-friendly, rustic lodges of Naked Retreats. While Naked is on the pricey side, they've garnered a reputation for being the best Moganshan has to offer both for the friendly family-run feel of the lodges, the level of comfort and service and the attention to detail.
As for the history of Moganshan, author and Moganshan Lodge owner, Mark Kitto puts it very well:
In the early 1900s some foreigners from Shanghai stumbled up the 500-metre mountain and decided to make it their exclusive hideaway. In those days, you climbed the hillside in the comfort of a sedan chair borne by two hardy porters, up stone steps winding through the bamboo plantations. Missionaries, taipans, customs officials and their families built thick walled villas, municipal baths – as swimming pools were once known – tennis courts, churches and public halls. The village became a microcosm of the Concessions, with its own governing committee who decided if you qualified for the exclusive enclave....
Moganshan is as steeped in history as it is in the cool mist that shrouds it in the early morning. At every turn in the maze of paths that crisscross the slopes you will find an old banker's mansion or the humble holiday home of the hoi polloi of a bygone era. Through the rusting wire that surround the old swimming pool, amongst the head high weeds that cover the old tennis courts, you can imagine young men in slacks and tennis shorts offering cigarettes from silver cases to girls in halter tops, that today we would call t-shirts, and sunhats hiding bob cuts. Scott Fitzgerald should have been there. Noel Coward probably was. Once.
Long deserted villas and mansions are fast being restored to something like their former glory. The workmanship might not be quite up to its former painstaking precision, and it seems a crying shame to throw out the beautiful old four legged cast iron baths with history's grubby bathwater, but someone, somewhere, has cottoned on to the potential of the past....
And be warned, the Moganshan experience is as addictive today as Du Yuesheng's opium dens were nearly a century ago.
[The above excerpts are from Kitto's article "Moganshan: anyone up for a top up?" published in Asia and Away].
I actually got to meet Mark Kitto when we had lunch on the sunny terrace of Moganshan Lodge high on the hill, overlooking the valley. While the Lodge restaurant was busy, Mark made time to talk to each guest and was even stopped by a portly tourist asking directions to "the bamboo forest". Mark looked bemused and slightly baffled, then pointed to the valley, up the hill, down the hill: "The bamboo forest is there and there and there and there."
"You can pick up an autographed copy of my book behind the bar", he says to us with a cheeky grin. "The book is free, but it's the signature you have to pay for." Looking around, I notice that the guy at the next table is reading a copy of Mark's book while finishing a latte.
For anyone interested in Moganshan or on doing business in China, Mark's book is well worth a read. He's come a long way from founding That's magazines in Shanghai to his present idyllic life in Moganshan with his Chinese wife and two children, running a lodge, working on another book and, as he mentioned to us, heading to Australia next month on a book tour.
As Mark rings my lunch bill into the till, I picked up a copy of his book China Cuckoo (An Englishman who went to China in search of a fortune and found a life ) that's lying next to the till and read the back cover:
In booming Shanghai, Mark Kitto hit the big time. The Financial Times called him a ‘mini media mogul’. One weekend, Mark escapes to Moganshan, a dilapidated mountaintop village built by foreigners in the early 1900s as a summer retreat. It’s a familiar story: Mark falls in love with the place and decides to restore one of the villas, as if he were in Tuscany or Provence. But here the familiarity ends. The process is full of the usual pitfalls – but multiplied to the nth degree, Chinese-style. And then, when he dramatically loses his business empire to the Communist Party, what began as a weekend getaway becomes much more: Mark moves his family up the mountain and makes Moganshan his home. The ex-tycoon has gone ‘China Cuckoo’. Funny, touching and inspiring, Mark’s story gives a very different view of China today – from someone who’s chosen to stay....
"Sounds interesting", I mumble to him, while kicking myself for this unimaginative, idiotic statement. He smiles blandly back at me. I feel a bit dumb as I check my wallet and realize I don't have enough cash on me to buy a copy of his book (which is less than 150 RMB). I escape from the awkward situation by asking him where the toilets are.
Since my own analysis of Moganshan can hardly compete with Mark's eloquent and historical description, I'll give you some simple and practical reasons why Moganshan is an excellent weekend escape from the crazy life in Shanghai:
a. It's quiet, small, unpopulated, non-touristy, fresh and green.
b. It's got bamboo forests and tea plantations to hike around in.
c. You can rent a large old house for the weekend and go with a group of friends.
d. One or two nights in Moganshan is a decent amount of time there.
e. People are friendly and laidback.
f. There are lots of old, abandoned stone mansions to explore.
g. If you need a bit of exercise, Moganshan has a number of great trails to mountain-bike or do cross-country running.
h. It's just bloody nice and chill.
Things to keep in mind: from Shanghai there are no direct buses or trains to Moganshan so you need to hire a vehicle or bus from Shanghai to get there (takes around 2.50 hours to drive there, depending on traffic). Or you can take a train to Hangzhou and a cab to Moganshan. Although the "shan" in Moganshan means "mountain", in my non-technical opinion, it seems like more of a really big hill than a mountain.
Also, I recommended that you to pack supplies (chocolate cookies and a couple nice bottles of red wine, ahem), as there is a little local shop, but its selection is as limited as you might expect. A number of the accommodation options in Moganshan have self-catering facilities, so you can bring food to BBQ outdoors or cook in the kitchen. Book accommodations at least three weeks in advance, do some planning and you'll have a fantastic trip.
When you get to the point where you're agreeing with Sartre that "hell" is, indeed, other people, it might be time to take a weekend off and go to Moganshan. On return to the big smoke, you might have a more Miltonian and introspective view of heaven and hell.
Here are some photos from the weekend. For more Moganshan photos, go here:
One of Naked Retreats' Lodges
"Where is the bamboo forest in Moganshan?"
It's here...
It's there...
It's everywhere...
Sliced bamboo shoots, drying in the sun.
A reminder of a bygone era...
A farm on the mountainside.
One of many old stone houses perched on the mountain, some in better repair than others.
This house rents for 2000 RMB per night (sleeps 10-12 ppl).
Could use a paint job....
A tea plantation on the side of the mountain.
Beautiful stonework....
More beautiful stonework...
A stone house.
A farm.
One of the resident dogs at our lodge.
Hiking along the forest trails....
Hangzhou train station...back to civilization...WAHHHHHHHH!