Fwd: Emei Shan
on Tina's Journal (China), 31/Jul/2009 11:00, 34 days ago
On Monday morning Sarah and I went to Emei Shan a 2 hour bus ride South of Chengdu. Emei Shan is considered to be one of China's most'spiritual' mountains as you will find many temples from the base up to the summit. We decided to start the walk up the mountain the following day as the 150RMB ticket to enter the mountain covers you only for two days. We had time therefore to go to the'Hot springs' in Baoguo on Monday afternoon. It was a great opportunity for Sarah and I to behave like kids and play on all the water slides. We had met a Dutch girl on the bus to Emei called Sylvia who we invited to join us on the two day climb and I think she thought we were a bit crazy ;-) But then some people just don't know how to have fun! We started walking up the mountain at 8am on Tuesday and the first 1000m was filled with stunning scenery, lush vegetation and waterfalls We also encountered monkeys which tended to be exactly where the maps said they would be. The walk up I found quite exhausting especially after the first 1000m as it is literally just flights of stairs all the way up. The higher we went the more humid it became and weeventually were just walking in the cloud. This meant that our clothes were sopping wet and having to put back on wet clothes after changing into dry ones for lunch wasn't fun! We stayed the night at'Elephant Bathing Pool', a monastery at 2070m. I don't think I could have climbed much further that evening since we had been climbing for 8 hours. The next morning we set off at 7am and we were just immersed in cloud so couldn't really see much. We decided therefore to give up the climb to the summit as we wouldn't be able to see anything. This meant we only walked for about an hour and half which entailed a 500m climb up to Leidongping and took the bus down to the bottom (there is a road which runs up the east side of the mountain). The climb was worth doing for the fantastic scenery and I can understand why it was used as a Taoist retreat because of its beauty. The water pools are crystal clear andvery inviting but bathing is prohibited. We got back to Chengdu on Wednesday afternoon and I came back to Simao yesterday evening. I was sad to say bye to Sarah and Tim who are now in Tibet and continuing their travels. We have plans though to meet up again soon so looking forward to that.The college campus is very quiet and I still have another couple of weeks before work begins again.