It is rather disconcerting to find yourself part way up a mountain, around dinner time, as storm clouds are rolling in. No-one around you, the only guesthouses are somewhere “on the trail” according to the guidebook and the final cherry on the top of this rather frustrating predicament is that its hot, humid and you’ve got a mouthful of water left. To understand how I ended up in this position, I need to rewind a little.
I’d managed to sneak in some annual leave to get a short 5 day break built around my Tuesday and Wednesday weekend back in July 2013. I decided to use this time to take a trip down to Chengdu, one of Chinas coolest and most happening cities. Great food, great scenery and a dialect of Mandarin that can leave even the most proficient speaker confused and befuddled.
I landed in Chengdu on Monday lunchtime after a my flight out of Beijing was (inevitably) delayed. I dumped my bags at hostel and hired a bike and cycled around the cities parks before meeting a former colleague for dinner. My plan was to spend Tuesday checking out the pandas. Wednesday I would head to Le Shan to get up close and personal with the big buddha and that afternoon I would take a bus from Le Shan to Emei Shan and sleep on the mountain and make the summit the next day. Then head back to Chengdu on Thursday evening and fly back to Beijing on Friday. Piece of cake right?
Well, the bus from Chengdu to Le Shan was delayed traffic and then unsurprisingly the bus from Le Shan to Baguo, the village at the foot of Emei Shan suffered a similar fate. Since my time was limited I opted against walking from Baguo and took a bus from Baguo to the Wannian bus depot. From here a cable car took me to the Wannian Temple, which knocked roughly 15km off my journey to the summit. As I took the first cable car up, it was around 3:30pm and I knew I was going to have to get a move on to make any sort of progress. After a couple of hours of dragging my tired sweaty self up the steps that accompany every mountain in China I came across my first guesthouse. Not wanting to take the risk of not finding another one before nightfall I decided to stop there. I paid my 30 or so kuai and headed to my room to have a rather overdue shower. It was at this point I realised I’d forgotten to bring a towel. No problem, I thought I’m sure the guesthouse will have one. Sadly my assumptions proved incorrect. I took a quick shower and used the little known pillow case and drip dry technique to dry myself. I then scoffed down some instant noodles and retired to bed pretty early, as I planned to continue walking at around 5am the next day.
Just before midnight thunder and lightening sent rain down from the heavens above. I headed out of my room watch the storm, with the corridor being lit up with every lightening strike. This whole scene bared a rather uncanny resemblance to every cliched horror film. The fact that I was the only traveller staying at this guesthouse did nothing to disrupt such thoughts.
At 5am my alarm went off and continued my walk up the mountain, stopping for snickers and photos. The stunning scenery came out in dribs and drabs as the clouds parted to reveal the beauty that lay behind them. All the while the stone steps continued to sap the life out of my tiring legs. However, the scenery is most definitely worth effort. With little shops selling stickers and water along the way there are plenty of places to replenish your energy whilst admiring the scenery below. Be aware that the nearer you get to the the peak the more monkeys begin to appear, so keep any food you have out of sight. There have even been reports of monkeys stealing peoples phones and cameras as they try and take pictures.
As I approached the summit I came across the Jieyin Monastery. The mountain pathway breaks into a cauldron of cars, buses, people, restaurants and hotels. Here I had to make a choice, walk the remaining 3.5kms to the Golden Summit Temple, or take a cable car instead. After 2 days with out a shower, a mixture of snickers and instant noodles inside me and legs like jelly I decided to get the cable. A decision I do not regret at all. After disembarking the cable car there was a lovely walk to the summit. The scenery that I was able to see was breath taking, however the majority of my view was just cloud – just my luck.
I then took the cable car back to the Jieyin Monastery area and from there took a bus back down to Baguo. Here I was able to take a bus directly back to Chengdu where a shower and terrifyingly spicy Gan Guo dishes were waiting.
ps I have no photos of this trip as I lost my camera a couple of months later and I hadnt trasnfered the photos off of my camera. Lesson learnt.
