I found that the tower I wanted to reach was built just above a temple. The denizens of said locale were friendly, and I was nearly converted by a monk who lived there. He was from just south of Cangnan, from the southernmost area of Wenzhou prefecture, and also one of the poorer parts. While I was riding the bus back from Canton, the bus driver who was from the Northeast said as we drove through that it looked like the rest of China in the Eighties, and that it was straight out of the third world. He said it in measured verse so it was much funnier than my translation. So this monk from the most southerly part of the prefecture regaled me with tales of adepts who could communicate with the spirit world, and thereby know the past and the future as well as read your thoughts. He explained that Buddhists were different from Christians in that Christians only need to believe in the religion. Buddhists train and therefore anyone can become a Buddha if he makes the effort. He also told me about a large Buddhist monastery in the US which is called 万佛城 or Myriad Buddha City which is probably in California. I just typed it into my favorite search engine, and sure enough, its in California. If anyone is interested the proper name for it is 万佛圣城 or The Sagely City of Ten-thousand Buddhas, a middling translation, but there it is. After being nearly converted I escaped while they were busy chanting the sutras. I made it to the tower, which was just a reconstruction of a previous tower. The reconstruction was an earlier one from the nineties, lots of the reconstruction of destroyed temples is very recent. I have taken several pictures of the tower from different vantages and will post them for your viewing pleasure.
After I viewed the tower I scrambled past some graves up to the path on the ridge and followed it for a distance. (The first picture in today's entry is after I climbed up the ridge and am looking down at the tower.)
The next day (yesterday) I went back again and found my way to the same path along the ridge. I walked along it through some magnificent scenery and finally found my way to a Taoist temple where I was served tea flower tea, which you can read all about here:My weblog about Tea