---
title: "Mist & Masters — A Morning at a Hidden Taoist Temple | LyrikTrip"
description: "Forty minutes up a pilgrims' road to a 300-year Taoist temple outside the gates — tea from its own terraces, lunch from the back garden, tai chi in the courtyard."
type: "experience"
source: "film"
url: "https://www.lyriktrip.com/it-IT/experience/qingcheng-taoist-temple-morning"
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![A plank walkway following a stream up Mount Qingcheng](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/85205793af76.webp)

Qingcheng · A morning, booked on its own

# Forty minutes up, *and the tea is poured*

A morning at a three-hundred-year-old Taoist temple outside the scenic-area gates: a walk up a pilgrims' road with nothing to buy on it, lunch from the temple's own garden, and tai chi in the courtyard after.

- Where: Qingcheng, the outer mountain · Dujiangyan · about 70 km west of Chengdu
- How long: A morning · 10:00–13:00 on the mountain, plus the drive
- Getting up: 40–50 min on foot · A pickup to where the road ends, then one path
青城外山

LyrikTrip · a standalone morning

## Mist*& Masters*

- 10:00 – 13:00 on the mountain
- A 300-year temple
- Private, from two
- Book two weeks ahead

## What you get

### One morning, *and none of it is queued for*

### You'll see

- A road with **no ticket gate, no sightseeing bus and no cable car** on it
- Forty minutes of wet stone, moss and cedar with **not one stall**
- A temple that grows its own vegetables, keeps its own chickens and picks its own tea
- Whoever is in residence that month — it changes, and that is part of it

### You'll eat

- **Ginkgo-and-chicken soup**, the dish you are supposed to have on this mountain
- Tofu set with water off the mountain spring
- Qingcheng cured pork — one of the mountain's four famous things
- Green tea from the terraces below the wall, poured before you arrive

### You'll hear

- The senior brother, over tea, before anything is scheduled
- Why this temple sits outside the park administration entirely
- Tai chi taught by demonstration — **no English promised, and we won't pretend otherwise**

### You'll take home

- A tai chi form corrected by hand, in a courtyard, by someone who lives there
- A morning on Qingcheng with no queue in it
- The name of the temple, which we give you when you book and not before

## Act I — The other mountain

![The rock inscription reading ](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5bc77d85fcb0.webp)

![Visitors climbing the front-mountain steps shoulder to shoulder, a porter among them](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/f69f03966118.webp)

![A ferry crossing the lake on Mount Qingcheng in mist](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/58a2e2734f6b.webp)

Qingcheng is where Taoism began — and the mountain *Kung Fu Panda* made famous.

Most visitors meet it as a queue. Sightseeing bus, then cable car, then a climb anyway, shoulder to shoulder with half of holiday China.

There is a saying: *Qingcheng, the most serene under heaven.* For years we joked it should be spelled *sorrowful* instead.

## 01 — Where the road ends

![Forested hills above the water on the quiet side of the mountain](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/5fb3f562e26b.webp)

10:00 The outer mountain

### Where the road stops being a road

Pickup truck only · no coach fits

The front mountain has the shops, the ticket gates and the crowds. The outer mountain has none of them — because the track up was never built for tour buses. It was cut for people going up to practise. A pickup takes you as far as wheels go. After that the mountain is on foot.

## 02 — The climb

![A stream falling through the forest beside the path up Mount Qingcheng](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/8099eab352fa.webp)

10:15 The pilgrims' road

### Forty minutes, nothing to buy

Mossy stone · a stream · no vendors

Wet stone, moss, cedar, and a stream running somewhere below you the whole way. What is remarkable about this walk is what is missing from it: not one stall, not one ticket booth, not one loudspeaker. On the front mountain you queue for the cable car. Here you simply walk, and the mountain gets quieter the higher you go.

## 03 — The temple

![A red-lacquer Taoist hall on Mount Qingcheng, half lost in mist](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/357535b8b9ac.webp)

11:00 Arrival

### A temple that feeds itself

300+ years · outside the scenic-area system

It sits outside the park administration entirely, which is why it still runs on its own terms. The Taoists here grow their vegetables in the back garden, keep their own chickens, and pick tea from the terraces below the wall. Nobody is stationed here for show — the people you meet are the people who live here.

## 04 — The tea

![A purple-clay teapot and two white cups on a dark tea table](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/849278693c23.webp)

11:15 Poured before you arrive

### The tea is already made

Green tea from the temple's own terraces

The senior brother — everyone calls him that — will have brewed it before you reach the gate, because that is what you do when someone has walked forty minutes uphill to see you. You sit. You get your breath back. Nothing is scheduled for the next twenty minutes.

## 05 — The table

![A table crowded with Sichuan home-style dishes](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/00729ed5408c.webp)

12:00 The refectory

### Lunch where the Taoists eat

Ginkgo chicken · spring-water tofu · cured pork · garden greens

Not a restaurant — the room where the community eats, and you eat in it with them. Ginkgo-and-chicken soup, the dish you are supposed to have on this mountain, simmered the old way. Tofu set with water off the mountain spring. Qingcheng cured pork, one of the mountain's four famous things. Wild greens cut that morning from the back courtyard.

## 06 — The courtyard

![People practising tai chi in a courtyard before a traditional gate](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/24ed1196c47e.webp)

12:40 After the meal

### Tai chi, taught hand and eye

In the courtyard · no English promised

There is a reason it comes after lunch and not before. The form is taught the way it has always been taught here — by demonstration, corrected with a hand on your elbow. Your city master interprets everything that needs words. The rest doesn't need any.

## Why not the front mountain

### The same mountain, *two entirely different days*

Qingcheng, the way most people do it

- Sightseeing bus, then cable car, then a climb anyway
- In summer you queue against the whole of holiday China
- The front mountain tops out at 1,050 m — hot, and no shade in the line
- Lunch means queueing again, at a restaurant that sees you once
- Want your fortune read? That's another gate, another fee

This morning

- A pickup up the back road, then one path, walked
- No gates, no bus, no cable car — because there is no scenic-area system out here
- Forty minutes of moss, cedar and a stream, and not one stall
- Lunch at the table the community eats at, cooked from the back garden
- Tea, the meal, tai chi and the conversation are the day — not add-ons

## Who is up there

![An empty pavilion among the trees on Mount Qingcheng](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/4a9c79efd787.webp)

Who you'll actually meet

### Nobody is posted here. *They arrive, and one day they leave.*

Because the temple sits outside the park system, it takes in cultivators from anywhere — people who found it the way you're about to, by walking up and asking.

In June we went up to see what had changed and found a Taoist from Taiwan keeping the hall. He had been hiking Qingcheng, come across the place by accident, and asked whether he could stay and practise.

Before him there was a young Taoist — a postgraduate, not raised in the tradition — who spoke enough English to talk with guests directly. He has since gone wandering.

So we promise you tea, a table and the form. We do not promise you English, and we won't pretend otherwise.

## The table, unrolled

### What comes to the table

Cooked from the garden, the coop and the terrace

![A clear stewed soup ladled from a white pot](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/770b753d8129.webp)

**Ginkgo chicken soup**白果炖鸡 · the dish of this mountain

![A table crowded with Sichuan home-style dishes](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/00729ed5408c.webp)

**The refectory table**道观食堂 · you eat where they eat

![A purple-clay teapot and two white cups on a dark tea table](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/849278693c23.webp)

**Terrace green tea**青城绿茶 · picked below the wall

![An ancient ginkgo on Mount Qingcheng hung with red ribbons](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/3b2fa582bcc1.webp)

**The old ginkgo**银杏 · the nut that goes in the soup

![A woven bamboo fence around a mountain vegetable plot](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/de952d0dc9a6.webp)

**The back garden**后院菜地 · what lunch is cut from

![Sunlight through the old canopy on Mount Qingcheng](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/b76afe2f3abe.webp)

**The spring**山泉 · what sets the tofu

![A moss-covered stone wall on the mountain](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/a6e054292bbc.webp)

**The canopy**林冠 · what you walk under for forty minutes

![Moss growing over the tiled roof of a mountain hall](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/84b2e757e8ea.webp)

**The hall**正殿 · three hundred years standing

## Designer's note

“We found it looking for somewhere quiet enough to run a Taiwanese group, and the front mountain was never going to be it. The road up is a pickup track cut for people going to practise. If you really want to find a place like this, you find it — and then you don't put its name on the internet.”

Charles Yang · LyrikTrip travel designer, Chengdu

## Practicalities

- On the mountain: 10:00 – 13:00
- The climb: 40–50 min uphill
- Getting up: Pickup or 4×4 — nothing bigger fits
- Guide: City master, the whole way
- Language: No English promised at the temple
- Booking: Two weeks ahead — hosting days are confirmed one by one
- Afternoon after: Dujiangyan, the pandas, a valley tea or a hot spring
- Group: Private, from two guests
## End card

![Temple eaves under the green canopy of Mount Qingcheng](https://cdn.lyriktrip.com/s/049d0fdac2fc.webp)

### Book *the morning*

Half a day on its own. Two weeks ahead — the temple confirms its hosting days one at a time.

[**Start planning](/contact)

## Sources

**图片来源 · Image provenance**

**本页 14 张风景与建筑照片是真实拍摄于青城山／都江堰的图片**，取自 Wikimedia Commons，均为 CC 授权、可商用，署名见下。
 它们能代表这座山，但**不是供应商合作的那座外山道观**——那处地点没有公开照片，按产品逻辑也不该有。

**仍有 6 张为 Unsplash 占位图**：道观的茶、食堂的一桌饭、院里的太极，以及手卷中的两格。
 这几样在公开图库里没有真实对应物，**只能靠实拍补齐**。上线前必须替换。

「转折」一节原本的人物肖像已**删除**——用一位无关老人的照片代表道观里的具体人物属于失实呈现。
 换成了一张无人的林间亭子：空的地方比一张陌生的脸更贴合「他们来了又走」。

- [A6 青城天下幽 问道青城山 liuzusai 2012 三千年银杏树 - panoramio](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A6_%E9%9D%92%E5%9F%8E%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%E5%B9%BD_%E9%97%AE%E9%81%93%E9%9D%92%E5%9F%8E%E5%B1%B1_liuzusai_2012_%E4%B8%89%E5%8D%83%E5%B9%B4%E9%93%B6%E6%9D%8F%E6%A0%91_-_panoramio.jpg) — liuzusai刘祖赛 · CC BY 3.0
- [四川 青城山-道观一景 - panoramio](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%E5%9B%9B%E5%B7%9D_%E9%9D%92%E5%9F%8E%E5%B1%B1-%E9%81%93%E8%A7%82%E4%B8%80%E6%99%AF_-_panoramio.jpg) — Nyx Ning · CC BY-SA 3.0
- [Mount Qingcheng (54530904077)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Qingcheng_(54530904077).jpg) — xiquinhosilva · CC BY 2.0
- [Chengdu travel 098 (35800201440)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chengdu_travel_098_(35800201440).jpg) — JianEn Yu · CC BY 2.0
- [A6 青城天下幽 问道青城山 liuzusai 2012 - panoramio](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A6_%E9%9D%92%E5%9F%8E%E5%A4%A9%E4%B8%8B%E5%B9%BD_%E9%97%AE%E9%81%93%E9%9D%92%E5%9F%8E%E5%B1%B1_liuzusai_2012_-_panoramio.jpg) — liuzusai刘祖赛 · CC BY 3.0
- [2006 成都 青城山 - panoramio (1)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2006_%E6%88%90%E9%83%BD_%E9%9D%92%E5%9F%8E%E5%B1%B1_-_panoramio_(1).jpg) — 张元柏 · CC BY-SA 3.0
- [Mount Qingcheng (54532026803)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Qingcheng_(54532026803).jpg) — xiquinhosilva · CC BY 2.0
- [Chengdu travel 115 (36023382542)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chengdu_travel_115_(36023382542).jpg) — JianEn Yu · CC BY 2.0
- [Chengdu travel 117 (35800227390)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chengdu_travel_117_(35800227390).jpg) — JianEn Yu · CC BY 2.0
- [QinChengHouShan BaiZhangQiao(new)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QinChengHouShan_BaiZhangQiao(new).jpg) — Jason Zou · CC BY-SA 2.5
- [Chengdu travel 122 (35354883604)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chengdu_travel_122_(35354883604).jpg) — JianEn Yu · CC BY 2.0
- [QinChengHouShan WuLongGou](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:QinChengHouShan_WuLongGou.jpg) — Jason Zou · Public domain
- [Chengdu travel 121 (36190901575)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chengdu_travel_121_(36190901575).jpg) — JianEn Yu · CC BY 2.0
- [Mount Qingcheng (54531970274)](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Qingcheng_(54531970274).jpg) — xiquinhosilva · CC BY 2.0