Step 11 - A mountain, a buddhist and a hooker are sitting at a bar...

Part 1; A Mountain 

For all the photos of this Chapter, follow this link.

Okay, before getting onto the China related stuff, here's a link that my friend Alek sent me awhile ago. Insane English Textbook. Omg, the lulz. I've seen strange stuff in my Chinese textbooks, but nothing so bad/weird/strange as this.

One of the busiest times of the year in terms of domestic Chinese traffic.

So I haven't posted in something like two weeks. Why? In China we've just had the National Holiday （国庆节，Guo qing jie). This is a week long holiday that just about everyone in the country has, and is one of the busiest times of the year in terms of domestic Chinese traffic. As everyone has the time off, it's perfect for traveling home, holidaying, weddings and other celebrations.

With no classes on, my room-mate planned a journey to see some of the local attractions near/around Chengdu. These were basically plucked from the Lonely Planet guide book so they weren't exactly going to be off the beaten path, but I didn't mind. The chosen destinations in order of arrival were 峨眉山 (Emei mountain)，乐山 (Leshan)，雅安 (Ya'an) and bifengxia. For this post, we're looking specifically at Emei.


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All the places are roughly 2 hours bus ride from Chengdu - not too far away but not exactly close either. So it was decided that on the afternoon of last day of class (I can't remember if this was the 1st or the 30th), we would catch a bus to Emei mountain - more specifically, a town called Baoguo located near the base of the mountain. 'We' of the group was comprised of myself, Patrick (my roommate and the organiser), 3 girls from our class - Virginie, Lucy (French) and Gosia (Polish), John, a 20-something year old from England who is teaching English but lives in our dorms. The trip had a less than auspicious beginning, as it rained and we couldn't get a taxi to the train station. More on this later but at this stage I didn't have any wet weather gear, luckily the rain wasn't that heavy. After much walking, attempted flagging of taxis and a crowded bus ride, we got the the station, got our tickets and departed.

For the life of me, I can't think of an appropriate caption other than I took this photo on the bus.

I slept quite a bit on the bus ride - as much as possible when the bus is constantly using it's horn and breaking heavily - sometimes for little apparent reason. Thankfully, I'm not aware of any pictures of me half-asleep and drooling in my seat. After we arrived in Baoguo, we got black cabs (Illegal taxis, usually nicer cars and sometimes more convenient but also more expensive - the price is agreed on before you set off so make sure you haggle it down) to the hostel where we had some rooms booked. Teddy Bear Hotel was the name of the place, and it wasn't too bad - The beds were clean, but the showers were pretty dodgy. On more than one occasion on this trip, we would be having cold showers. For anyone considering staying at Teddy Bear, just a word on the food - it's okay, but not particularly cheap and not particularly good. It's not bad, just sort of average. Anyway, it's in the Lonely Planet, look it up.

Make sure you keep your passport on you.

I had almost forgotten to mention this - when travelling around China, make sure you keep your passport on you. At the very least, take photocopies of all the important pages (Your details, the visa, the residence permit if you have one, the entry stamp). Virginie and John had both forgotten, and we encountered quite a few difficulties as reputable places of stay will require a lot of these details from yo. In our experience, it seemed the more expensive the place, the more details they wanted. I would have forgotten to take my passport if it weren't for Patrick reminding me, but I always keep photocopies in my wallet so it wouldn't have been as bigger issue.

We passed the night there drinking and playing cards (President/Asshole, of course), before setting off in the morning around 7 or 8am. It's about a 1 1/2 hour bus ride from Baoguo to where we wanted to start climbing on the mountain, so again I was left alternating between watching the landscape drift by, and napping. Amusingly, the bus driver was hawking up great big loogies and spitting them out his window, about every 30 seconds for a period of 5 minutes. After the 3rd minute, the girls were getting pretty grossed out. Oh China, such wonderful manners you have.

Taken sometime soon after getting off the bus. Clearly, we'd already gained some altitude.

After getting off the bus, you have to walk for maybe 15 minutes or more before reaching the actual entrance gate/admission to the mountain. This is where our first problem was encountered. Full admission costs ￥150 - being students we were entitled to a ￥80 admission. We didn't get it. Why not? Good question. We had our student cards, but apparently that wasn't good enough. The attendant claimed that to be eligible, we needed to have at least four years tuition booked on our cards. As far as I know that's just plain wrong, and furthermore they only book one year in your student card at a time even if you're planning on staying for longer, like I am. In the end we bit the bullet and coughed up the extra cash, but it pains me when time after time, I see systems in China that are broken or arguably corrupt.

The back of the admission gate. Exciting, I know.

Somewhere around this stage, there was a lady selling bamboo walking sticks for ￥1. We assumed their primary use was to be for walking. I didn't worry about buying one, foolishly. As it turned out later on, they served an important secondary function, but we'll get to that in a minute. For now, it was just pleasant walking. The stairs were fairly few and far between, the weather was cool without being cold or rainy - ideal for walking. I found the scenery fairly attractive, taking plenty of pictures, though in the end its all just trees on a hill.

(On a side note, this post has been taking me several days to get through writing. My memory is getting more faint by the day so I'll try push through it now.)

Stop! Pagoda time!

On the way up you'll pass other little sights, such as pagodas and Buddhist temples, or carvings into the rock face. I'm not really sure of the age of these things, it's entirely possibly some of them are relatively new. Now it should be said, there's more than one path up the mountain. Various paths and roads criss-cross the mountain side, and you interchangeably walk, ride a bus or even take a cable car for most of the climb. It depends on your interests, wallet and time. Anyway, the path we were taking led us through a monkey area. Basically monkeys collected along this section of the path, which also had keepers every 5 metres with bamboo sticks. The monkeys here are very very docile, probably because they've learnt that humans with sticks = pain. To my concern, the monkeys here are also fed by humans. So yeah, perfect place to get close to the monkeys (within touching distance), 'ooo' and 'ahhh' and so forth. This heavily 'guarded' section of course comes to an end, but that doesn't mean the monkeys do. Here began another aspect of my mountain trial...

My most commonly used phrase for the rest of the trip was 'God-damn monkeys'.

We were taking a break after a hefty set of stairs, and I was pretty hot with my black shirt on. So I figured I'd swap into my singlet. Now, I had read not to open my bag infront of the monkeys, or have anything showing. Looking around, there weren't any monkeys. Good news. I open my bag, change into my singlet, and take a swig of coke. I also had all my food in a plastic bag at the top of my bag. At this stage, a big-ish male monkey appears from the forest behind me. My bag is still half open, so I hurriedly start closing it. I'm not sure if it was too late or what, but the monkey comes to me (1 of the 2 people in the group of 6 without sticks, remember), and, I think, first made a grab for my backpack. I don't really want him pissing off with all of my stuff, so I put a hand on it too. He looks up at me, snarls and bites my left leg around the thigh.

Not the monkey that attacked me.

This shocks me a bit and I shout and raise my free fist high. He then changes his mind and grabs the plastic food bag that's still poking out of the top of my backpack (I was too slow to fully close it), pulls it out and runs off a short distance into the forest. And that's basically where it ended. He's going through my food, I'm putting on my bag and basically telling everyone we should bail as soon as possible. I pick up the coke bottle that had been dropped by my feet without much thought - This is important later on. For now, I just wanted to get away from that monkey. We bug out and stop shortly at a little store/encampment, and I inspect my leg. His teeth had cut through my pants and managed to leave a nice little bruise/pinch on my thigh, but hadn't pierced through the skin. I doused the area in antiseptic anyway, and off we went. I'm pretty sure I was still feeling a bit of surprise/shock/anger. My most commonly used phrase for the rest of the trip was 'God-damn monkeys'.

So we continue up the mountain, along the way seeing various other people get harassed by monkeys. This included a monk having a coat stolen from his bag - confusingly, he first hit the monkey to get his coat back, then threw food at the monkey once he had retrieved the coat, which led to the monkey chasing him to a monastery door. We also saw a monkey stealing the jacket of a worker, who promptly chased it into the forest with a stick, and so far as I could tell, promptly beat the crap out of the monkey.

The little band of Chinese girls that refused to speak Chinese.

So the golden little rule I picked up here was to not even think about opening my bag unless I was inside a building. Even around the outside of buildings, monkeys were aggressive and actively harassing people. We had a group of 5 Chinese girls approach us at a monastery to ask if they could walk with us because they were afraid of monkeys. On an interesting side note, they refused to speak Chinese with us. Anything that was asked, in English or Chinese, was responded to with English. It was a little annoying for some reason.

Her face had taken on a green tinge.

So onwards and upwards we continued. By now it was clear who the stronger climbers were - Patrick and I were pushing ahead and the front and over time slowly leaving the other people behind. I felt a little guilty, but not really. Patrick said he didn't care, and that he had warned them it wouldn't be easy. I felt better knowing that at least John was still back with the girls. One of them was struggling quite badly in particularly, and her face had taken on a green tinge. She insisted that it must have been because of the altitude, but I'm not really sure that anyone bought it.

I hate stairs now, seriously.

Oh, on a side note. Try and make sure you have proper gear when you go hiking. I'd bought boots but not thought about getting a proper bag, so the entire weight of my bag was on my shoulders. After half a day, it was uncomfortable. After a full day, it was really painful. So yeah, where ever you are, whatever the situation... try be more thoughtful than I was!

Typical view of the foliage around us.

Somewhere along the way, Patrick and I had matched pace with some Chinese and started chatting to them. These guys were really friendly, and it was just a really enjoyable part of the trip as we had lunch with them, and then continued up the mountain, taking breaks as necessary and chatting as we went. One of the girls had been quite brave in that she was climbing on her own before falling in with us - she works as a nurse at a hospital and her friends weren't getting time off with her.

Some of the people that joined us. The girl in red is the nurse.

So up and up we went, the weather getting colder and cloudier as we went. Finally we were reaching a point where we were thinking about finishing up for the day. There's a monastery (as you may have been starting to realise, there's quite a few on this mountain) also known as the 'Elephant Bathing Pools'. We hadn't seen any monkeys for quite awhile, and we were taking a break before the final ascent to reach hot food, hot showers and beds. I figured I'd take a drink, fair enough, right? Had a sip of coke, and started up the stairs with the bottle in my hand.  

Pretty typical view looking back down.

Oh. There's monkeys in the trees. There's a monkey coming towards me. There's now a monkey beside me. He's reaching for my coke bottle. I'm dropping it. He's running off with it. I'm moving up the stairs slightly faster and cursing monkeys for the ump-teenth time.

Elephant Bathing Pools. Cloudy much?

Amusingly, monkeys seem really bad at getting coke bottle lids off. This guy struggled for about 5 minutes, then dropped it and gave up. Clearly they've developed a taste for it though - they showed no interest in our large water bottles. About 5 minutes later, a guy walks out of the monastery with a slingshot and scares the monkeys off. Kinda wished he'd done that about 10 minutes ago, 5 minutes before I was climbing the stairs, but such is life.

You could see the mist moving and swirling and curling.

So the Elephant Bathing Pools were fairly spectacular for me in that you could see the clouds rolling right up and over you, and not just in the sense of 'Yep, I can't see very well', but you could see the mist moving and swirling and curling. So I thought that was cool. The downside was that it was pretty damn cold. For about five minutes, we were spared the chilly bite of the air as the monks chucked a bunch of cardboard into a fire by the entrance. After booking our rooms (Yes, even a Monastery on the side of a mountain requires your passport details), Pat and I then settled in for the 30 or so minutes before the rest of our friends turned up. After discussion with our new-found Chinese pals, it turns out one of the main reasons that people climb the mountain is to see the sunrise from the peak, which is supposed to be incredibly spectacular.

Mmmm, warmth.

Sure, sunrise sounds nice. As it turned out though, to get to the peak by sunrise, we would have to start hiking again around 2am. Greaaaaaaat. We weren't helped by various other guests staying up till 12am and later, keeping on with various chats and discussions outside our room. Oh, did I mention it was cold? Luckily our beds had electric blankets, which were so effective I ended up turning it off and taking off some of the clothes I had worn to bed.

We resorted to using our mobile phones as dim lights, modern candles in the darkness.

We managed to get climbing again around 2.30am, and it was dark. Unsurprisingly really. Surrounded by clouds and with no lights on the path, those of us without torches (ie, all but Patrick), we resorted to using our mobile phones as dim lights, modern candles in the darkness. Again, one of the girls struggled quite badly. This time, I stayed behind and kept her going while the rest of the group moved on. A Chinese guy had also been leaving the Monastery at the same time as us, and I'm ever grateful that he stuck with the girl and myself. You see, it started raining, and I didn't have any waterproof gear (a-duuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I know, stupid). The Chinese guy had an umbrella, and the girl had a raincoat. While it may not make full sense, I ended up wearing her raincoat as a bit of a cape over my head and my bag while they took shelter under the umbrella. So there we were in the dark, in the light-medium rain, climbing and also descending on wet slippery stones, in very low light conditions. I thought it was great...

2am, leaving the Elephant Bathing Pools.

Oh, and I was carrying her bag too. I don't think that was so great, but it was necessary to keep up an acceptable pace. I was still hoping to be able to catch the rest of the group before sunrise. After a few hours of walking, we actually did catch up. The lead group had taken a break at the cable car, which the girls planned to take up to the top while us boys continued on the traditional way. So, I was able to lose the weight of an extra bag, gain a walking stick (donated by the grateful girl), and continue onwards and upwards. I wont lie, it wasn't easy. At least, maintaining a good pace wasn't easy. Patrick had been resting for about 1/2 an hour at the cable car, while I had about a minute or two rest before starting off again. We pushed on together for quite a way, and slowly we lost John somewhere behind us. We managed to catch our Chinese walking friends from the day previous, who had continued on to sleep at a different monastery closer to the peak.

Eventually I too dropped behind the group as fatigue kept my legs in an almost permanent 'dead' status, and needed more and more frequent stops. I kept going though, on my own. In someways that was good, in others bad. I quite liked setting my own pace, but I didn't appreciate various Chinese people behind me flashing their torches up at me through the mist, which shot my night vision and left me relying heavily on the walking stick as a guide to the next step. Seriously, that stick cost the girl ￥1. Why didn't I buy one? I dropped more money in the Elephant Bathing Pools for goodluck that it would have cost me for one of those sticks. Anyway...

I kept reassuring him it had nothing to do with my sight.

I guess I caught my second wind at some stage, because I caught the group and then led it with Pat the rest of the way. The advantage of being in the lead there I guess was that I felt I was being pushed along? Pro's and con's to walking alone or as part of a group I guess. One of the Chinese guys kept commenting on how good my eyesight was, consistently finding firm footing. I kept reassuring him it had nothing to do with my sight, and everything to do with the fact I was hitting the base of every stair with the walking stick but he didn't seem to buy it. As we climbed we passed through temples and monasteries with increasing frequency, and somewhat tellingly, increasing numbers of tourist shops/junk vendors. Being 4am, there wasn't anyone manning these stores, but they'd be opening soon enough.

Great success! At the peak!

Yep, cloudy and cold.

Finally, success. We reached the peak. The stairs widened out into big courtyards, and big paths wound a path up to the very top. So we reached the top... and were surrounded by cloud. I think it was somewhere around 5am at this stage. There was something at the very centre of the peak, but we couldn't see it through the cloud. Oh, and it was cold. Really cold. And now that we weren't exerting energy climbing, we got cold, really cold. Some of the Chinese thought that my efforts at keeping warm would have made pretty good dance moves, but I'm less certain. I called my parents (Yay, technology), and we had a nice if brief chat about our various situations. Mine being 3km above sea level, in the middle of a cloud and freezing my balls off, theirs being in warm and snug in bed. *Insert expletive here*...

Initial view of the centre of the peak.

As it turned out, we were standing out in the cold for no reason. We could have been inside a building that was the base of the strange peak object, if only we had seen that it had an entrance earlier. Basically it was a big temple thing (excuse me for being light on details). One of the guys suggested I do a little prayer, so I got my wishes thing on, and I'm still hoping it comes true. Suddenly, word came from outside, sunrise was here! People were hustling out of the building to be overwhelmed by the awe-inspiring beauty of...

Slightly later on, things became clearer.

Slightly less dim clouds. Yep, we'd been dudded by Mother Nature. Apparently you're really lucky to get a good day at the peak, and we hadn't been lucky enough. Oh well, the fun was in the climb, not the massive quasi-religious tourist trap at the peak. Now, I'm not very good at physics, but there's one little gem I picked up somewhere in life, and that's what goes up, must come down. So back down the mountain we went. We passed increasing numbers of Chinese tourists who had bussed up to the highest point of the mountain, and were walking the short way to the top. I'd call them cheaters, but included in their ranks were babies and ancient men and women. Honestly, really really old looking people, tackling what was still a significant number of stairs, smiling as they went. That's more impressive than me climbing the section that I did - it's expected that I be able to do that, easily even. It's just stairs... anyway, kudos to old Chinese people.

We went and spent half a day at some hot springs.

Going to try and wrap this up quickly now, but basically we went down to a point, caught a bus back into town, showered, ate, slept, felt sore, ate more, slept more, and so on. Avoided stairs at all possible costs. The next day we went and spent half a day at some hot springs located in Baoguo. Really, really nice. Like, it wasn't the best hot spring I've been to in China, but I appreciated it all the more after the walk. I got a back massage/manipulation while I was there so anything in my back that wasn't yet hurting, now did. They did have the fish that eat the dead skin off your body, but Patrick refused to try it, and I wasn't going to bother doing it again all on my own so that ended that possibility.

AAAANNDDD Yeah, that about sums up Part 1. Part 2 and 3 will be significantly shorter I think, so for those of your with your eyes now bleeding from reading off a computer screen, rest easy. After the series on my national holiday adventure, I'll probably start off with a series on my classes.

There's always time for a myspace style picture, right? Funnily enough, the Australia beach towel belongs to a German.