Adrift in a sea of green

Stranded in the forest of steel-and-cement structures, urbanites are impatient to embrace nature on weekends.

A natural forest that people in Sichuan province tend to visit is the Southern Sichuan Bamboo Sea in Yibin.

The 120-square-kilometer Bamboo Sea is the largest primeval bamboo park in China and its average temperature seldom drops below zero degrees Celsius in winter when many parts of the country are covered with snow and ice.

Known as one of the country's 10 most beautiful forests, it has been a popular tourist attraction since scenes from the Oscar-winning Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon were shot there in 2001.

Two years later, the bamboo forest got an ecotour rating when it was listed as a world-class bamboo reserve in December 2003, becoming the fourth tourism destination in China to be granted Green Globe 21 certification.

Located in Canberra, Australia, Green Globe sets the global benchmark for certification of environmentally friendly tourism sites. Certification is based on Agenda 21 — which embodies the principles for sustainable development, endorsed by representatives of 182 countries and regions from around the world during the United Nations Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992.

The Bamboo Sea covers Changning and Jiang'an, two counties under Yibin's jurisdiction. Amazed at its vast expanse, Huang Tingjian, a poet from the Song Dynasty (960-1279), described it as "bamboo waves". As Huang was an influential man of letters, his description gave rise to the forest's popular moniker — the Bamboo Sea.

The Bamboo Sea covers more than 500 hills and has over 300 species of bamboo. The ocean of green is punctuated by lakes, captivating waterfalls and lively spring scenery.

The Bamboo Sea has an annual average temperature of about 16 C with an altitude ranging from 400 to 1,000 meters above sea level.

Hiking may sometimes seem exhausting, but visitors walking amid the Bamboo Sea tend to feel more lighthearted because of the prevailing tranquility and their exceptionally beautiful surroundings.

It can be refreshing to walk through rows of lush bamboo, standing as tall as 10 meters. As winter is the sluggish season for tourism, there are not many visitors, and people can clearly hear birdsong, streams burbling and the echo of their own footsteps in the groves.

They can also see waterfalls cascading onto rocks, creating a crystal spray, and view bamboo trees thriving in the narrow clefts of huge rocks. Bamboo shoots are so powerful that they can penetrate and topple rocks as they grow, according to Cao Peng, a staff member on the Bamboo Sea's administrative committee.

It's a rare luxury, but visitors can feast on many bamboo delicacies at once. They can taste all kinds of food inspired by the versatile plant in both luxurious and ordinary homestays.

A smorgasbord of delights, among the dishes on offer are cold bamboo shoot slices in sauce, roasted bitter bamboo shoots, pickled bamboo shoots, soup made from the fungi of the bamboo's humus, as well as an opportunity to sample liquor contained, and rice cooked, in bamboo tubes.

A must for visitors to the Bamboo Sea is the museum, where they can gain a deeper understanding of the site.

Bamboo began to grow there about 3,000 years ago. Since ancient times, bamboo has been indispensable to locals, who still use it to build houses, make liquor, forge tools and utensils for daily use, and craft musical instruments and souvenirs.

The indispensable nature of bamboo explains Chinese people's long admiration for the plant, which has been a constant inspiration in the lives of the people and the art of the nation.

Poet Su Shi of the Song Dynasty once famously said: "I would rather eat without meat than live without bamboo."

Bamboo is revered in Chinese culture because of its unique versatility.

Poet Bai Juyi of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) related bamboo's structure — firm, straight, hollow and divided into segments — to desirable moral traits such as grittiness, modesty and openness.

Since then, scholars have compared bamboo to men of moral integrity. Chinese scholars have spoken highly of bamboo, and it is closely related to the traditional Chinese hermit culture.

In most stories about hermits, they are shown to live amid bamboo groves, as a bamboo forest provides a peaceful and secluded environment.

Within walking distance from the museum, visitors can reach several homestays. Among them is a quiet, two-story hostelry named Forgetting Worries. In addition to all the modern facilities common in hotels, the homestay with its spacious courtyard is unique for its collection of calligraphy works, and the paintings on the wall of its canteen have philosophical words that motivate visitors to stay calm in an era when the tempo of life is accelerating, and people are under increased pressure.

The Bamboo Sea has easy transport facilities. A taxi can take visitors to the Changning Railway Station near the county seat in around 30 minutes and they can reach Yibin and Chengdu, capital city of Sichuan, by bullet train from the station.

Designed by the State Council as one of the country's historically and culturally famous cities, Yibin is located on the borders of Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou provinces and at the juncture of the Jinsha, Minjiang and Yangtze rivers. The starting point of the golden waterway of the Yangtze River, Yibin is an open city designed by the State.

Visitors head for the juncture of the three rivers as there are no highrise buildings and the horizon is broad. A majestic white Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) tower perched atop a nearby green mountain offers a picturesque scene.

Yibin is China's renowned "capital of liquor", with a distilling history of over 3,000 years. The mention of the city will bring to mind Wuliangye, one of China's best-known liquors. Wuliangye's ancient cellar in the city has a history of more than 600 years of uninterrupted production.

Today's Yibin appeals strongly to visitors because of its liquor, bamboo and tea culture.

With its climate, the city abounds in agricultural resources. While liquor and tea lovers are happy to see what they like in different parts of the city, other visitors show a strong interest in ranmian, the "burning noodles", on the street. Available in almost every restaurant in Yibin, the noodles are like the famous hot dry noodles in Wuhan, Hubei province. The difference is that the "burning noodles" are mixed with peanuts and bean sprouts.