The main attraction on our Sichuan visit was Emei Shan. a sacred buddhist mountain! All we can say is stairs, stairs and more stairs... and ohhh the soreness after!
Day 1 - climed approximately 28 km of stairs... up, straight up, for about 8.5 hours. We climbed until truly, we could climb no more. Along the way were amazing mountain views, especially as we climbed higher and higher, becoming level with the surrounding peaks. As it was rather cloudy, we were literally in the clouds - it was amazing. We spent the night at a not very quiet monestary. Apparently not only do buddhist monks not take a vow of silence, but its also ok for the them to watch very loud TV until all hours of the morning. We were, however, very grateful for the presence of some electric blankets as it was rather chilly and very damp. The monks also cooked up a fine meal of veggies and rice.. I don't know if it was because we were absolutly starving, but it was by far one of the tastiest meals that we had.
Day 2 - we finished the climb to the peak 3077m to be met by more tourist hordes who had bussed it up (apparently we are insane masochists who would rather climb millions of stairs than sit on a bus). The view was amazing... once we got away from, you guessed it, the tourists and tourist stalls selling the usual monk beads and fungus. A big thing to do here is to buy a lock, engrave it with your name and lock iit onto chains strung along the edge of the mountain.. so of course, we purchased one and locked it on the highest point!
Now, one would think the way down would be a breeze... but truly going down is far more painful than going up.. especially as we returned by a different, longer (albeit far more beautiful) route. It took us about 10 hours to walk the 35 or so km down the mountain. We definitely came to appreciate our borrowed walking sticks both to help relieve the pressure of the downhill climb, as well as to fend off the wild monkeys.
As well as the endless, torturous stairs, and of course the sacred buddhist sites, Emei Shan is known for its not very shy wild monkeys. These guys were hilarious.... if not sometimes a bit scary in their advances. On the way down one stole my water bottle from me, and at another point, a very big male, with very large teeth decided to empty my pockets to see what kind of treats I might be hiding in there. Of course, this whole event is captured in pixels and will be shared. The little ones were soooo cute - monkeying around, as it were, and generally hamming it up for the cameras.
The last 10 km or so of the walk were absolutley gorgeous as we walked alongside numerous waterfalls and a crystal clear river, with amazingly fresh and cold water... a nice treat for our hot and tired feet.
We made it back to the base at about 8PM on the second day, absolutely destroyed... but feeling great for our climb.... It was truly amazing.
