Waking up the next day in the darkness of our monastery room we did a quick clean up and pack so we could start making our decent down the rest of Mt. Emei. After a quick breakfast we started the slow walk down the mountain. We kept a steady pace going down stairs and after a little bit our sore legs started to feel the pain. However as we kept walking we realized that we were getting much closer to the next waypoint.
Sure enough we reached the next major stop within an hour. Our hope began to rise that we would soon be off of the mountain. Not saying much, we continued to focus on our slow decent down. Locals would see us and try to have us pay them to carry us down the mountain but we refused. After a while it became a pride thing.
There wasn’t much to see except the usual cliffs and trees as we continued to walk. Then we happened to hit the monkey zone. This was an area of the mountain where the wild monkeys congregated and interacted with the tourists by stealing food and drinks. One of the park staff walked with us for a bit scaring off the monkeys with his stick. Unfortunately for Jeff, a monkey tried to climb up his leg and while shooing him away, his buddy climbed up a pole and snatched a bottle of Coke from his backpack. After hearing him swearing at the monkey I took a swing with my monopod to no avail. Score Monkeys 1, Us 0.
After leaving the monkey zone we thought that we would be right at the exit of the park. Oh no, it was much more deceiving than that since we had to walk along a rocky trail past a temple, around some shops along a lake, and then along a mountain road next to a stream. Finally after another hour of walking we made it to the parking lot where we grabbed the first bus out of there!
We took the bus down to the Teddy Bear Hotel and ordered up a big lunch and then grabbed our bags. Our French friends, Pierre and Jessica, left us a note on our suitcase with some contact info but it was a little hard to decipher their e-mail address. Hopefully when they return from their trip we’ll get in touch. We finished up lunch, switched the boots out for shoes, and grabbed a cab down to the bus station and caught the next bus to Chengdu.
The ride back was slow due to rush hour traffic and once in Chengdu we had to battle the locals for a taxi to get to our last hotel. I was able to snag a taxi and after a long day of hiking we made it to the Tibet Hotel which was a very nice looking hotel. We got into our room and took a long shower and decided to splurge and have room service again instead of venturing out to look for a restaurant. The food was good but I wanted a massage so I took Jeff with me downstairs to the hotel spa.
The spa was quite nice and pretty empty probably since it was a Friday night. We went further back to a private room with 2 tables and a bath tub and shower area. Quite nice. Our masseuses came in and it was a pretty standard massage except that they focused mostly on the spine and also lit our backs on fire. Mind you it wasn’t like they poured gas on us and threw a match. They had some soaked face towels which they lit on our backs causing some intense heat onto our spine. Pretty different stuff which I don’t think they do back at home.
[caption id="attachment_2263" align="aligncenter" width="900" caption="Super tired after 10 hours of 'Stair Master'"]
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[caption id="attachment_2269" align="aligncenter" width="900" caption="This was a super nice bathroom compared to the one in the monastery"]
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