峨眉山 (Emeishan)

Emeishan

峨眉山

On our second day at the University, our waiban told us that we have a week off before we begin teaching, and asked if we wanted to do anything before classes start. We all decided that we would like to go to EMeiShan, one of the four most important Buddhist mountains here. 峨眉山 is a couple of hours from Pengshan, and the peak is at 9800 ft. (Pengshan is about 1500 ft.). Our waiban decided to arrange a trip for us to go there for two days. The next day she said we could go on a tour with a group of other Chinese tourists for 500 kuai ($80) with transport and lodging. Our group decided that was a little too rich for us, and that we wanted to go on our own. After hearing this, our waiban petitioned her department to send one of the foreign teacher assistants with us as a guide (probably to keep us out of trouble). Our assistant’s name is Emily, and she’s really nice and helpful and speaks really good English (and hikes really fast). It took us several hours and 4 or 5 busses to get there, but when we did the air was much cooler and the sky was a very pretty shade of blue. Our first stop on the mountain was the monkey zone, a pleasant 2 hour hike past some neat stone sculptures, up a canyon to see Macaques. Each of us was armed with a bamboo stick just in case the macaques got unruly. The monkey zone was unlike any other monkey experience I have ever had. Basically, the paths herd tourists into a little area where the monkeys steal anything not strapped to your pack. To make money, people sell “monkey food” (hard corn kernels) in packages that the monkeys steal as soon as you’re near them. Then, there are several park people who have trained monkeys to sit on your head if you pay 20 kuai for a photograph. The same people try to keep monkeys from sitting on anybody who hasn’t paid so that they can get their photo money. This ultimately results in monkeys jumping all over people (because they are trained to do that) and then getting chased away by park people with sticks. Total mayhem. There was one good scam going where one monkey sat in the middle of the path out of the monkey zone and grabbed onto people and wouldn’t let go unless you fed him. Right next to him was someone selling “monkey food” at double the price. Brilliant. I was less interested in the monkeys (I’ve had enough monkey “encounters”) but really excited by the mountainous terrain surrounding me.

From there we took a bus up to the highest road-access point on the mountain (about 2000 feet from the top) where our group split up. Penny and Robin and Emily (mom and daughter and our guide) decided to stay at the base and take the gondola up to the top in the morning. The rest of us decided to hike to the top of the mountain in the dusk and try and find a place to stay so that we could see the sunrise from the top of the mountain the next morning. On our way up we passed a group of Chinese university students who spoke a little English. I hiked with them the rest of the way up, and found out that they had begun at the bottom of the mountain that morning, climbing about 8,000 feet. When we made it to the area where we could stay, they helped us find a hotel and took me out to dinner (which was instant noodles, the only offering on a mountain where the only way to get food up there is having porters bring it). Our group had 5 people in a room with 3 pretty small beds, and our friends who helped us had the same sized room for their 7, so one of them came to stay in our room so that everyone could stay 2 to a bed.

We all got up at 4:30 the next morning to climb to the top and see the stars and then the whole sunrise. At 4:45 someone from the hotel came and knocked on every door to get everyone up to see the sunrise. We joked that the checkout time was 5 am. My Chinese and American friends all hiked to the top together (another half an hour) and secured a spot at the railing of the monastery to watch the sunrise. It was beautiful watching the sky grow steadily lighter, and fun to listen to everyone cheer as the sun breached the horizon.

However, my favorite part was watching in the West where the Himalayas appeared in the clear morning air before disappearing in the clouds.

There were hundreds of people at the top of the mountain to watch the sunrise, and many many more once the gondola started running. I became an instant celebrity and had my photo taken with tons of people, including what seemed like all of the possible permutations of my 7 friends. A couple people took the gondola down, and Matt and I decided to try to make them wait as little as possible, so we ran down the mountain. I wish I had gotten some better pictures of all of the stairs. We made ourselves even more visible than we already are by running past all of the people slowly making their way down the mountain.

You should be able to see all of my pictures from Emeishan here:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.554467321362.2051968.48101395