We took a trip to EmeiShan with a couple of our Chinese friends this past weekend and it was quite an experience, really it was a crazy adventure. We were excited to go because we were going to be able to see monkeys (I now never want to see a monkey ever again. You'll see why below).
The picture above is a map of EmeiShan. We started our journey at the bottom of the mountain (In the lower lefthand corner of the map). We then took a short car ride up the mountain a little ways to a trail head. We weren't planning on doing this originally, but thank God we did. If we opted out of the drive a little ways up the mountain, it would have taken us over 3 hours to get to the trail head where we started. We were dropped off at the trail head and began our day of hiking at about 8:30 AM.
The beginning section of our hike was pretty easy. Barely any stairs, nice walk ways, and of course, construction…
It really was an absolutely beautiful area. The water was crystal clear, the cleanest water I have ever seen in China… There were so many trees, exotic plants, waterfalls, etc.
The mountain was littered with Buddhist temples. Another reason, besides the monkeys, that we went to the mountain was because of the temples that were scattered throughout the area.
The first temple we came across was pretty spectacular. The scenery was majestic as was the temple itself. Unfortunately, we were unable to actually take pictures inside any of the temples. They were very serious about their no picture policy…
Here is the first temple we went to:
Before we even got to the temple there was this cool little pagoda. The pagoda was located on a tiny rock island set between two streams. The only way to access the structure was by crossing a tiny little arch bridge. It was very cool.
The temple was very impressive. It was absolutely massive. Inside the temple were many statues of Buddha and other religious items.
Just past the temple were some other sights of interest:
The wall (left) was huge. I was only able to capture a small area of it. The detail carved into the stone wall was mind blowing. There were so many tiny little details throughout the artwork. And on the right is a neat waterfall we came across.
The hiking was still pretty easy at this point. And very cool. All the trails throughout the mountain were stone walkways, well, at least most of them.
Part of the trail enabled us to actually walk through a creek on the mountain. Then we actually walked above the creek through this narrow valley. It was so awesome. Definitely some great eye candy.
Then we came to a totally safe wooden bridge. LOL I'm kidding, it was not safe. It looked like it was about to collapse. China, right?
Next… The Monkeys. The damn monkeys….
We were so excited to see the monkeys. As we were walking into the area where they were known to be, we saw a man walk down who told us that, "they [the monkeys] were coming."
Ohhhhhhh we were so naive.
At first, it was awesome. We came across two monkeys sitting on a post. These monkeys were actually having sex, it was hilarious.
This was our first contact with monkeys. We thought they were hilarious. I mean, they were having sex! Then they came down to hang out with us….
Anddddd….. Shit just got real. This poor girl almost got her purse stolen from a monkey…
The monkey above on the left was just standing there hissing at us, kinda scary. The one on the right started climbing towards us. He/She wasn't too scary. And this little guy below was just hanging out in the middle of our group. He/She was clearly a homie….
Monkey Selfie!
He's coming….
This was a really cute baby monkey…
Ok. So now is where it gets real. At this point, we were laughing having fun avoiding the monkeys, preventing them from stealing our things, running away from them, just having fun.
Monkey Attack! (Sequence photos)
1. Basically just trying to avoid the monkeys that are blocking the pathway. The one on the ground is just staring at us. The one on the railing is watching us and hissing. You cannot see in this picture, but our Chinese friend Cathy is standing directly behind me.
2. Ok so we passed the first monkey, at least we thought… Cathy is scared shitless at this point. She is holding onto me for dear life as we watch this monkey on the railing and it is hissing at us. I had no idea about the monkey that is DIRECTLY behind me…
3. I feel a tug. I think to myself, "hmmm that's weird." And then realize, HOLY SHIT THERE IS A MONKEY ON ME. Also, by this point Cathy had run away screaming. She was more scared than I was.
4. Ok, so I am definitely freaking out at this point, but I keep my cool. I had no idea how to react in this situation. I didn't want to freak out and make a huge scene so I just kinda stood there…
The monkey isn't really doing anything to me so I calm myself down a little more. I then say, "I hope someone is getting a picture of this!" At this point, all my friends realize that this actually does qualify as a Kodak moment. Little did I know that Devin was taking pictures and laughing his ass off the entire time (Thanks, dick).
I do have to give him some credit, though. The last picture he took (above) might be the greatest picture of all time. The monkey is just standing on my back and staring directly at the camera. Definitely a Kodak moment.
Immediately after the pictures were taken the monkey started pulling at my beanie. I thought he was going to steal it, so I took it off (huge mistake). The monkey started pulling my hair! It really started to hurt so it I quickly decided it was time for him to get off me. All I did was take one strap of my backpack off my shoulder and he fell to the ground. I then ran away as quickly as I could. We laughed about this situation the rest of the trip. Definitely an awesome story. As terrifying as it was to have a wild animal on my back, I am definitely glad that it happened.
The hike continues….
The scenery was breathtaking. It was the most beautiful place I have been to in China. Here are some more pictures I took as we hiked…
The mountains that surrounded us were so unique. They were very pointy and we felt confined to the area because they were all around us.
First sight of snow in China!
As you can imagine, it started to get a little cold at this point. However, we were moving so fast up this mountain that I felt very hot. Definitely some intense hiking. As I have mentioned, the trails are nothing like they are in America. The infrastructure for hiking in the mountain was great. All the trails were made of stone and it was mostly stairs… I walked up soooo many stairs…
We kept plugging along until we reached a monastery. It was about 2:30 PM by the time we got there. We weren't sure if we would actually stay there or not. They told us it was 4 hours until the biggest monastery and about 2 hours to the next place we could sleep. We didn't know what to do… Here are some pictures though.
This monastery was gorgeous. The snow made it that much better. We ultimately decided to keep plugging along to the next monastery.
More scenery… with lots and lots of snow!
Every once in a while we came across little shacks like the one above. These people were selling snacks and drinks, very over priced as you can imagine. But, the prices were fair. The only way to actually get goods to these snack shacks was by someone carrying them in baskets up thousands and thousands of stairs…
We finally reached the next monastery and it was… really shitty.
There were thousands of stairs, of course, on the last leg of our journey that day. Devin actually took the liberty to count a set of stairs we were walking up. He got to 1000 stairs and then called it quits. I don't blame him…
Nevertheless, more beautiful scenery…
We arrived! Finally!
A pretty decent view from the monastery...
Our sleeping arrangements for the night!
We were absolutely exhausted by the time we arrived at 6 PM. After a day of over nine hours, yes NINE HOURS, of hiking we ate food and immediately went to sleep. I passed out at about 8 PM…
The beds were more comfortable than I had expected. I was expecting a sheet of wood and a blanket for the sleeping arrangements. We had pretty comfortable mattresses and an unlimited supply of thick blankets. The beds even came with heating pads, which were necessary. It was freezing.
We woke up at 6:30 AM to prepare for another day of hiking to the top of the mountain. It was still damn cold when we woke up, but we pushed forward…. up a lot of stairs…
View from behind the monastery
Ughhhh more stairs….
Taking a break in front of a snack shack
The snow covered trees were one of the coolest things I have ever seen...
WE MADE IT!!!!
So we didn't actually get to the top of the mountain. We got to a tourist area close to the top of the mountain. This is where the bus takes you, if you choose to be a weakling about it, and where there is a ski resort and other amenities.
Check the map:
We started at the very bottom of the map. Towards the middle of the map where you see the paths intersect is exactly where we started. Now, where you see the red towards the middle top is where we ended up.
The Temple in the area and a whole lot of snow.
A Chinese snowman? I don't know...
A little view point. Can't see too far down because of the clouds
From here, we decided to take the gondola to the top of the mountain. The two minute gondola ride sounded better than a three hour hike… They PACKED the gondola full of people. Pretty standard…
At the top:
WOW. All I could say when I got to the top was WOW. It was spectacular. The structures were extremely impressive. I was in awe the entire time. Oh yeah, it was also really, really, really cold….
Elephant statues lining the stairway up to the main attraction
It was snowing pretty hard up there. Closer up pictures below
A truly amazing structure. It's really all that can be said about it. Just seeing it for the first time made the two day hike completely worth it. You could even go inside the structure. There was a small door at the bottom of the statue. Inside the temple, there was no photography of course, was a beautiful statue of Buddha.
There were, of course, other temples at the top...
The snow storm continuously got worse and worse while we are at the top of the mountain. As you can see from this picture it was almost a complete white out…
It really was quite an adventure. We hiked for a combined 14 hours to the top of the mountain. We obviously did not want to hike back down. We were definitely ready to get out of there and back to our warm beds back in Pengshan. We decided to take the bus back down to the base of the mountain, which took an hour and a half. So, fourteen hours walking up and a one and half hour bus ride back down….
When we finally got back to Pengshan I was ready to sleep for at least 15 hours that night. Instead, I stayed up until 5 AM so that I was able to WATCH THE NINERS GAME!!!!
Epic weekend, epic trip, epic game.
I'm off to Thailand in a couple days which means no blogging until I'm back.
Thanks for reading, see you guys in a month!
Jono
