When we arrived in Kangding, we had no other options but to go back to Chengdu and visit Mount Emei. We stayed at Teddy Bear Hostel (it is indeed a hostel decorated with loads of teddy bears), at the base of the mountain in Baoguo Village.
Busses run from Baoguo Village to three different car stops on the way to the top of the mountain. On our first day we took a bus to the middle station and paid an entrance fee of 150RMB. On top of that, you also have to pay for buses and/or cable cars. So the entire stay on the mountain can be pretty pricy. We visited the Wannian Temple, which is the oldest surviving temple on the mountain, dating from A.D. 980. To get to the temple, you have to be willing to walk a lot of steep stairs (or take a cable way). Once you get there, a long pathway with statues of white elephants on both sides welcomes you and Buddhist songs are played from different speakers.

After our visit, we walked down the stairs to the Qingyin Pavilion and walked towards the ‘Monkey Zone’. Bridges hang criss-cross above the river, where the monkeys watch your every move, ready to jump on your head or snatch away any kind of food you might have in your bags. If they get too aggressive, the monkey-watchers chase them away with bamboo sticks. I had already experienced the ‘monkey-jump-on-head-move’ before, when I was at Mount Emei in Febuary, so I did not want to relive the moment. Together with Caro, I hurried across the bridge, avoiding all eye contact with the monkeys, since this seems to tick them off.
But then again, the entire monkey business is commercialized at every other corner. Some people are actually willing to have a monkey on their head. For those people, the Chinese have invented the monkey-photobooth. The monkey  watchers lure the monkeys towards them and let them jump you. “Thank you, that will be 50RMB for having a monkey sit on your head and look for fleas.”
I think I’ll pass. Admittedly, it is quite funny to see other people do it.

We got back down from our little adventure at around 3PM and figured we still had a lot of time to see other things. We decided to take the western route back to our hostel. Our map informed us it was about 10km long. We figured it would take us about 3 hours to get to our hostel. Little did we know the first 5km consisted of stairs only going UP. We were exhausted, but the good thing was that this was a route with very few Chinese tourists. We had the mountain to ourselves and only heard the sound of crickets and birds. When we got to the first monastery on our map, it turned out to be a nunnery. When we arrived, they were singing Buddhist chants and performing all kinds of rituals. Sorry, no pictures allowed. Their deep devotion to the monastery and the details of the rituals left a great impression on me.

After another hour we finally reached the highest point on our map and started the way back down. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from all the walking it’s that going up is very hard, but going down even harder.  After about a million stairs, shaky legs and sore knees, we finally got back down.

Proud off ourselves we walked along the road that is Baoguo Village, when a loud ‘SMACK’ made us jump up. All of a sudden I saw a dead fish laying on the road, only a few meters in front of me. SMACK SMACK. Two toads followed the same fate as the fish and were now being weighed and brought to the kitchen to prepare for dinner. This is something typically Chinese; the customer hand picks the fish/toad/chicken or whatever, then said animal gets slaughtered in front of the customer to prove its ‘freshness’. After a year in China, I have gotten used to the, although cruel practice when it comes to fish and toads…
But when on that day, after our exhausting walk, the customer who had already pointed at the fish and toads, ALSO pointed at a huge rabbit… I immediately turned away, but unfortunately I was too late and still heard the big SMACK. Welcome to China.

The second day on the mountain, we wanted to go to the Golden Summit, which is the highest point of the mountain (3099m) and should give you a spectacular view of the landscape. The word ‘should’ is very true here, because most of the time, the top is covered in mist, or in our case, covered in thunderstorm and rain. It takes about two hours by bus to get at the highest car stop, from there, you walk another 2 kilometers and take a cableway to the summit. So, we sit on the bus, we walk to the cable way station, in the pouring rain. We bought poncho’s but off course, this is china and in china, poncho’s only seem to have a lifespan of two minutes. Five, if you’re lucky. So, we got to the cable car, totally wet, only to find out that the cable car doesn’t work under these circumstances. Again…welcome to china.

More news in a few days!

Stay tuned,

Maggie