Today was truly the beginning of two days of pure pain. We woke up early to get a spot at the top of Mt. Emei for a good view of the pending sunrise. We trudged along in the darkness until we found a wandering guy renting flashlights for 4 yuan ($0.60). After we had our new source of light, we made our way up many more flights of stairs to the top of the Golden Summit. Mind you it was freezing cold at this hour and we still had roughly 45 minutes until the sun rose. I took some shots of the moon over the mountain while Jeff held the spot.
After much waiting and fighting off other Chinese tourists, the sun finally started to rise. It was different since due to the smog and clouds, it came across as a red ball in the sky. After it disappeared, it came up again and we got all the shots that we wanted. Pierre and Jessica found us and we took some shots at the sunrise spot as well as at the Golden Summit. We talked a bit more about the rest of each of our trips over some mediocre milk tea and then packed up to start the rest of our day.
Pierre and Jessica took the bus down to the base since they were heading to Leshan but we were starting our descent down the mountain. At the start it was a pretty simple trek down the mountain. Steps going up and steps going down. We came across some monkeys along the way and fed them the rest of a banana that I was snacking on. Luckily they were distracted by some other tourists and left us alone. We continued on until we soon found ourselves to be the only ones left on the trail. It was nice to have nature around but also a little uneasy knowing that the only way off the mountain was to head off to one of three bus stops on the mountain.
After a little while we soon came across a snack bar and then later another one. We soon figured out that there were snack bars about every 30-45 minutes of hiking. Around lunch time we settled down at one and had lunch of scrambled egg noodle soup. We both enjoyed it although Jeff had an extra bonus of a hair and a fly in his. As we continued hiking mostly down some steep stairs our bodies started to feel the pain of not being fit enough for this trip. Soon enough my calves began to tighten and Jeff had a tweak in his right knee. Our pace began to drop and we started to worry a bit about getting to the monastery before night fall.
We consulted our map whenever we hit a major location such as a monastery or landmark. Jeff’s knee continued to get worse and we were soon using the handrails to help us along. Hobbling along we continued our way until we reached one of the major monastery’s for the night and settled in after 5 hours of hiking.
The monastery that we crashed at was called Xianfeng. It was a major monastery on the mountain but the rooms were kind of lacking for the mid-level price that we paid. There were holes in the walls and dead insects around the room but it did have a TV and two beds with electronic heating pads. Jeff took a shower first which required him to walk to another building and past the outhouses. The showers were actually pretty decent compared to the room but the squat toilets left little to be desired. As the night progressed, we huddled in a bed with the heating pad turned up waiting for the morning to come.
The moonlight
Pierre and Jessica from Paris
I had the ‘I woke up at 5am to see the sunrise’ face
Very impressive buddha built at 10,000 ft high
Egg noodle, it was pretty yummy
Endless stairs
More stairs
Jeff: I loved our monastery experience
This room had not much to offer, but we experienced how local people live
Creepy hallway inside the monastery
