We were leaving for a three day hike up, over, and down China's most sacred Buddhist mountain, Mt. Emei Shan. Along the way we hoped to sleep at monasteries, summit a 10,000 foot peak, and, if we were lucky, get an up close look at some adorable monkeys!
Emei town has become a premier destination for Chinese tourists as it serves as the launching pad for trips up the mountain, and it shows the boom that has occurred everywhere since the birth of the leisure class in new China.
Restaurants and souvenir shops line the main street leading up to an artificial pavilion complete with carefully managed waterfalls, the world's largest obviously fake ruby, and erstatz wall carvings of the Buddha and his disciples. Despite the obviously staged scenery, Chinese tourists were milling about by the hundreds, snapping and posing (peace sign to the side, number one, OK!) for pictures as if they were on the Great Wall or something, and as if there wasn't a real, historically significant mountain towering over their heads and disappearing into the mists above.
We'd soon had enough of this and retired to the hotel room for some conditioned air and Chinese television. There is literally at least one Kung Fu movie on Chinese tv at any given time, but the action scenes are wanting compared to what gets released in the states, and god help you if you try to decipher the "plot."
We settled instead on a Germany vs China ping pong match, something surprisingly easy to follow with no Mandarin beyond "hello," "thank you," and "I do not understand." Timo Bollinger withstood six set points in the first set to overcome Ha Min 16-14, but succombed to a merciless onslaught in the two subsequent sets, 6-11, and 7-11. I'll let you try and figure out who played for whom...
The next day we got up early and hoped to be on the trail by 8 am or so as we were told to expect a 9 hour day of hiking.
Day 1
Could not get a straight answer from anyone regarding where to even purchase tickets to get into the park. Not only did every person we spoke to have a different idea, but those ideas often directly contradicted the previous person's. One slightly less than helpful lady in the tourist office just kept telling us "on mountain, on mountain!" of course, the whole thing would have been a breeze if my mandarin extended beyond the three words and phrases I mentioned earlier. Anyway, after an hour or so of false starts and walking in circles, we finally got some righteous intel, and we were headed in the right direction.
Emei Shan, being a holy mountain and all, is covered with temples on every face of its slopes. Our intention was to sleep in these monasteries each night on our way to the top. We entered the park through the gates of Leyin temple. From here we had nowhere to go but up. Emei town is situated at about 500 m above sea level, and the summit awaited above us at over 3000 m asl. We would need to gain over 1200 m each day in order to reach the peak which, for you metricphobes out there, is over 10000 ft asl.
The trail to the top of Emai Shan is surprisingly easy to follow. It is essentially a stone road paved every step of the way. Perhaps this is a reconstruction of the ancient routes traveled by monks as they made their way from monastery to monastery, but the current path is clearly new, a creation, like so many other things we've seen in China, designed to lure in that new class of tourist and their disposable incomes.
But Ben? How did they build a stone path all the way to the top of a 10,000 ft mountain? Isn't it too steep? Yes, you'd think so, but the Chinese have built in steps to handle the ascents, thousands and thousands and thousands of steps. I looked, and found estimates that ranged between 10,000 and 20,000 steps total, but trust me when I say that when you are climbing up every single one of them en route to the summit, it might as well be 10,000,000,000,000 (ten trillion)
As we began to climb the first of our many many many steps, we passed a few hikers, but for the most part had the trail to ourselves. Despite the heat and humidity, hiking through the tropical forests of Emai Shan's lower slopes was very relaxing. It reminded me a lot of some of the trekking I've done in central America.
Then, after two hours or so on the trail, we began to hear voices. We came upon a bus depot filled with tourists who were disinterested in hiking to some of the earlier temples. Given the heat and soreness that I was already feeling in my calves, I can't say I entirely blamed them, but I was also pretty annoyed as well.
If turns out that the tourists were less interested in temples (in fact, the vast majority of hikers we saw were secular in nature-excepting a dedicated cadre of super hardcore little old ladies- we saw very few pilgrims and even fewer monks outside of the monasteries) and more interested in the region of the trail we were about to enter: the Joking Monkey zone, or, if you prefer the slightly off diction of the Chinese signs, Ecological Area for Monkeys.
The monkeys in question, Tibetan Macaques to be exact have been living on this mountain since long before the Buddha became enlightened. However, during this stretch of the trail they had grown accustomed to being fed by tourists and hikers. In fact, you can buy a bag of corn kernels to feed them if you so desire.
As we hiked on, sure enough we began to see the monkeys. They came right up to the trail and were utterly unafraid of humans. We delighted in taking their pictures for a while, but soon came to realize that they were more like zoo animals than something living in the wild. In fact, some of them appeared to be a bit out of shape as if a life of handouts and an unnatural diet were somehow detrimental to their health.
I spit my best game at this fellow, but he wasn't putting down what I was picking up, so to speak.
Shaking our heads, we prepared to hike on. Just as we were turning back up the trail, one of the guides grabbed Chris by the shoulder and began speaking and gesturing rapidly. Eventually, we figured out that she was referring to a package of peanuts which was exposed in an outside pocket of his pack. She was only satisfied when we shifted them to the more secure main pocket of his pack.
Thanking her (xie xie!) we began to ascend yet another brutal series of steps. We climbed for a while before stopping to rest. Exhausted, we slurped down water and eagerly broke open the bag of peanuts. When we were rested, hydrated, and sated, we reshouldered our packs and pressed on. Neither of us noticed that the peanuts ended up back in the outside pocket.
Eventually we left the hordes of tourists behind, and were enjoying the solitude and the cloud forest ( we had already ascended several hundred meters and the fauna had changed significantly). I was slightly ahead of Chris and hiking with a renewed sense of vigor and purpose.
Ahead I saw a lone macaque slowly ambling toward me. Beyond Joking Monkey zone the animals are truly wild and there are signs posted throughout the trail warning you about them and their aggressive tendencies. (Some advice to deal with "terrible"- the words from the sign, not mine- monkeys: never hike alone, and carry a rock)
Interlude: At this point you also need to know that we had been hiking with the aid of bamboo walking sticks which we jokingly referred to as our monkey sticks, or our " Hellz Wind Staffs." End interlude.
"Hello Monkey." I said amiably as it strode past me. I continued on my way before I heard Chris say, "This monkey is totally not afraid of my monkey stick..." then I heard a surprised cry.
I turned and saw the monkey on Chris's back clawing frantically at his pack while he yelled and ineffectively slapped at his simian assailant with his monkey stick.
I'd like to say that my first reaction upon witnessing this tableaux was to altruistically spring to the aid of my besieged friend, but alas I cannot.
My first reaction was hysterical laughter followed by a frenzied digging in my pocket for my camera. Unfortunately, before I could preserve this moment for posterity, the monkey snatched its prize from the pack and beat a hasty retreat, jabbering and hissing as its compatriots, drawn by the noise of the struggle I assume, rushed in to get a piece of the prize.
Fortunately, Chris was unhurt, laughing, and came out with the best prize of all: the ability to tell that story firsthand.
Moments after this picture was taken, this fellow made his move...
As we continued to climb (it takes roughly 15 minutes to climb 1,000 steps at a steady pace if you were wondering) a light rain began to fall. Hoping to err on the side of caution, I decided to use the "wooden" railing to steady myself. At first touch it felt off, too smooth and cold to be actual wood. A closer examination revealed it to be some sort of polymer designed to look like wood. If you looked carefully enough, you could even find the point where the fake knothole patterns began to repeat themselves. The Chinese had created god only knows how many miles of this stuff to line the entire length of the trail. I applaud their instincts for safety, but the whole endeavor (in each way station on the trail the garbage receptacles are identical, artificial hollow tree stumps) ridiculous and unbelievable. Or, based on just about everything I've seen in New China thus far, ridiculous and perfectly believable.
Several thousand steps up later, we came upon our first monastery. We never did catch it's name, but it was downright spooky: shrouded in fog to the point that you had no idea of its presence until you are upon it. Ghostly pagodas loomed out of the mist and I took some great faux arty pictures of fir trees, incense burners, and a sad and lonely basketball court that looked completely unused.
We had the option of sleeping there, but as we had several hours of daylight left, we decided to push on to Yuxian monastery, another 7 km down the trail.
Not only is infestation not too strong a word to describe the monkey situation at Yuxian Monastery, I don't know if it is strong enough. After hiking for another hour or so, we finally made it to Yuxian only to be confronted by dozens of monkeys. Monkeys in the trees, monkeys on the roof, monkeys in the courtyard, monkeys furtively sneaking into the kitchen, and monkeys literally ducking when the exasperated monks would raise their slingshots at them. Now I finally know how the marines at Khe Sanh felt. We took some amazing pictures and watching them plot and scheme made every grueling step, every drop of sweat shed, every frustrating tour group, and even the spartan accommodations and bland meal that the monastery served totally worth it.
Day 2
We woke up early (the monkeys had better sense as they were relatively inactive at that hour) and hit the trail after stomaching as much of the completely tasteless rice porridge the monks served us as I could.
Lots more stairs, followed by even more stairs. These ascents were brutal (let's put it this way, I'm really glad my place has an elevator) but I will say that they are great for gaining vertical meters quickly, no dealing with the ambling meandering of switchbacks, just unrelentingly straight up
By 9:00, at the top of 1600 or so (this time I counted, something I would do periodically until the physical exhaustion made even the most basic of arithmetic impossible.) more steps we came upon our next temple, the Elephant Bathing Pool.
EBP sits on the side of a cliff so high on the mountainside that it looks down upon the clouds. As you gaze forth from its terrace, you see a sea of clouds with occasional peaks sticking through like islands. We were able to get there early enough that it was not thronged with people, and the isolation, solitude, and quiet were all things I've always associated with Buddhist monasteries, and something that I felt was missing from the overcrowded (with tourists, ourselves included), massive, and quasi-urban temples that we visited in Tibet.
We continued on, climbing, always climbing. Other than passing occasional groups of hikers on the trail (Chinese almost exclusively) we mostly kept our own company. We finally reached a ridgeline, and were treated to some spectacular views of the valley below, as well as our first glimpses of the summit and the giant Buddha statue that crowns it.
We heard it before we saw it. The revving of engines, the honking of horns, amplified music, and literally thousands of voices. Rounding a bend, we came upon a massive parking lot busy enough to make Disneyland envious. There were at least 50 tour buses jammed into the lot, and more were creeping their way up the mountain road as we watched. The buses disgorged their passengers, each group lead by a guide shouting through microphone so tinny as to make their voices as discordant as possible.
Most shuffled toward a massive line that lead to a cable car that would take them within spitting distance of the summit. A tiny percentage of them (although still a huge number given the total number of people present) turned to walk up the final sets of stairs to the summit
We watched, flabbergasted. At this point we were about 12 hours by foot from Emei town, and once again we found ourselves behind hordes of Chinese tourists who had simply rolled out of bed and hopped on a bus. Throughout the hike we had met porters on the side of the trail who literally offered to carry us in sedan chairs, but it was only here that we actually saw people riding in them. I don't know how any adult human could ride in one of those things unironically, and not hate themselves.
It was kind of like busting your hump to get to the top of Mt Washington in NH only to find the parking lot full, the restaurant packed, and people proudly affixing "This Car Climbed Mt Washington" bumper stickers to their cars as if that were some sort of accomplishment.
The final distances from the parking lot to the summit are 3.5 km (not bad at all) and 500 vertical m (agonizing, especially since we had been walking since the bottom.). We were caught in queues of tourists also trudging upward, but managed to make steady, if not slow progress.
When we reached the top, we were greeted with more restaurants, souvenir stands, and the by now obligatory Chinese tourists. However, we also reached the Golden Summit Temple which remained staid and impressive despite the swarms of tourists. We also beheld an enormous (60 ft? 80? 100? I'm terrible at estimating) golden statue of a multifaceted Buddha. Despite the fact that it is obviously a new or reconstructed artifice, its sheer size made it very impressive to gaze upon.
The view from the summit left a bit to be desired as it was still very foggy, although even more so than the Elephant Bathing Pool, there was a sense of gazing down upon a sea of clouds.
We elected to stay at a hotel on the summit (as opposed to another monastery closer to the parking lot) in hopes of catching the sunrise through the clouds in the subsequent dawn.
Day 3
We woke at 5. We had set an alarm, but the proprietress walked to every room banging on the doors with a cudgel and yelling at people to get up for the sunrise. I know this, because the walls were paper thin and I heard every single one of her announcements.
We pulled on our warmest clothes and trudged back to the summit with several hundred of the hardiest and earliest rising Chinese tourists on the mountain. Apparently, in certain situations, the rising sun interacts with the perpetual cloud cover in such a way that an effect called buddha's areola is created. This is considered to be one of the miracles of Emei Shan, and monks used to consider it a message from beyond and treated it as a signal to rapturously jump to their deaths.
Alas, this was not to be for us. Cloud cover remained thick, and no sunrise, Buddha's Areola or otherwise, was visible to us. We shrugged it off. We'd had two great days on the trail, and were looking forward to walking down some stairs (for once) and the showers that were awaiting us back in Emei town.
The rain had the decency to wait until we were 20 minutes or so down the trail before it opened up in what I can only imagine was its most torrential fashion. I don't know if I've ever seen raIn come that hard or fast. Despite our raingear, we were soaked through in a matter of minutes. My fancy schmancy North Face shell may as well have been a torn garbage bag for all the good it did me.
We found ourselves descending stone steps that had now become raging waterfalls as the rain overwhelmed whatever rudimentary drainage systems that were in place. We tried to find the least suicidally quick pace to descend, but I have to admit we often erred on the side of way too fast, especially once we became totally soaked.
We decided to reevaluate our plans and put ourselves out of our misery so to speak. We made it back to the parking lot and bought a ticket on one of the very same buses that I had been mentally complaining about the previous day.
What followed was all to typical given our bus experiences in China. Regardless of specific miseries, two hours later we finally arrived back in Emei town cold, wet, and exhausted. As I type this, it's still raining, and I'm beginning to think that we might have cursed ourselves somewhere along the way. Perhaps we weren't pious enough in Tibet. I'm really coming to regret a crack I made about the future incarnation of the Buddha, Maitreya, being part robot. I may not know much about Buddhism as a whole, but I understand that it is centered around a vengeful and wrathful deity.
Last week in China, and we're headed back to Chengdu tomorrow morning. What we have left to do all depends on those ever reliable Chinese bus schedules, and what the weather is like.
Thanks for reading everyone, and I'll see you in a week or so!
Ben
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