China Trip: Emei Shan

Days 10-12: Emei Shan

After the hustle and bustle of three huge Chinese cities, we were ready for some peaceful time in a more natural environment. And so from Chengdu our group hopped in a bus and headed out to Emei Shan, one of China's three holy mountains. There we would hike the mountain and spend three wonderful nights in Buddhist monasteries along the way.

Before reaching Emei Shan, however, we made a stop in Leshan to visit the famous "Dafo", an enormous buddah carved into the cliff at the meeting point of three rivers. Dafo is supposedly the largest outdoor seated buddah carved from stone - enough description there to hint that many other buddahs in the world could claim to be "the largest." No question that Dafo is huge, though. From head to toe he is 71 meters high. Marvelous to see, but with the huge crowds and long lines, I was glad when we continued on our way to the mountain.

Our first night was spent at the lovely Baoguo monastery at the foot of Emei Shan. The monasteries were definitely as "rustic" as we got on this trip, but the accomodations were by no means rough. It was just a brief stay at Baoguo, however, as we took off the next morning at 6 am to catch a bus up the mountain. From the parking lot at the top we hiked up to a cable car that took us straight to the Golden Summit. It had been raining all morning, and although it had stopped by the time we reached the summit, we were surrounded by a dense and unforgiving fog that allowed us only a hint of the magestic vistas that must be visible on a clear day. Returning to the car park, our group split into two factions: the "short walk" people, who would bus down the mountain and walk two hours to the monastery, and the "long walk" people, who would walk from where we were all the way down to the monastery, a distance of 23 km (14 miles). Now, anyone who knows me can probably already guess that I was the very first to volunteer for the long walk - I always prefer a challenge. However, with the awesome hindsight I have now, I think it was probably the wrong decision. The walk had some really stunning scenery and was fun in so many ways, but I wasn't prepared to be going down steep stairs for mile after mile after mile...and so, with 10 km still to go, my right knee gave out and I had to walk the rest of the way on one leg, using two "monkey sticks" (normally used to scare off the monkeys that are all over the place, but also functional as walking sticks) as makeshift crutches. Well, I wasn't too pleased, but I did finally make it to the monastery just in time to join the rest of the crew for dinner at the Hard Wok Cafe - the only "restaurant" near the monastery (which itself was fairly tucked away on Emei Shan). So we spent our second night right on the mountain, in the most beautiful, green leafy peace we had known since our arrival in China. The beds at this place even had mosquito netting, which made the bed look positively royal. A great experience, despite the bruises and the knee (oh, I forgot to mention that I had also fallen on the slippery, steep steps early in the hike, so I had massive bruises on my arms and my tailbone).

After our night on the mountain, some people walked the rest of the way down the mountain, and others, including a very gimpy me, walked down two hours to a car park and caught a bus to the bottom. I spent the rest of the day reading at the Baoguo monastery and stretching out my aching muscles. It was hysterical to watch all the other "long walkers" wince and whine any time they moved; I definitely wasn't the only one suffering from the walk the day before!