Life in the Bamboo Forest

Sometimes you hop in a cab and spend a silent and even mildly awkward drive over to your destination. The cabbie doesn’t speak, and you’re not really up to talking to a wall, which can be taken literally due to the plastic barriers that block of all cabbies in Hangzhou from their passengers. Other times, however, you seem to get into a party cab. The taxi driver, either just in a good mood, or particularly thrilled to be driving foreigners, talks up a storm, jokes around, gives advice, and one heck of a pleasant drive. On the fine Friday of our hike in the bamboo forest, we, four Middlebury students, got lucky with the latter. We even gave him an English name: Scott. Scott loved having four Chinese-speaking foreigners in the car. What made it all the more interesting was that we got “lost”. Amy, our leader of the hike, told the cabbie where to go. We had to split up because there were so many of us, but this was not unusual in the slightest. The unusual part was when a Hangzhou cab driver didn’t recognize the name of the place where we were going. This only came up, though, after we mentioned that we were going hiking. Hiking? That road has no mountains, there’s no hiking over there. Oh no. Ok, call Amy. Well, Amy talked to Ming, who talked to the cabbie, who told Ming to hand over the phone. Then our cabbie Scott talked to Amy, and finally to Amy’s cab driver! It was a very interesting phone chain. We got it all worked out eventually, but the cab cost was a bit extravagant. However, as the office was paying for this excursion and we had a good time with Scott we didn’t care! Plus the view was getting more and more gorgeous by the minute.

The Bamboo forest was more peaceful than the ride to get there. The hike was difficult, too, though. Very difficult. Hot and humid weather do not go well with walking up a hundred flights of stairs, because that’s essentially what our hike was. On the way, though, we encountered the life that lived within. A praying mantis even stared me down.



The bamboo leaves are small for the height of the plant. The stalk of the bamboo is also quite thin for its height, allowing it to bend with the wind. It’s so oddly proportioned compared to most North American plants. So strange to our eyes and calming to our senses, the Bamboo gives off a mystical feeling. It bows to you as you walk by, a tiny person in a land of giant ferns.