Trip to Leshan and Emei Mountain
Trip Start
Unknown
1
4
9
Trip End
Ongoing
What I did
Boat ride to see the Big Buddha
Mount Emei, Sichuan, China
Friday, June 10, 2011
On the way we made a 15 minute stop at a sort of roadside tea shop. It had all kinds of overpriced teas and a beautiful scenic walkaway along the backside which seemed to lead to the field in which the local tea was grown. Some of the students bought teas and took pictures, I looked around a bit and ate my melted Snickers bar.
We then continued the rest of the way to Leshan. We exited the van and we immediately saw street vendors with some cheap Chinese trinkets for sale. I don't think I ended up buying anything but I did help a few other students bargain for better deals on various items like a feather fan, some bracelets, and some Panda memorabilia.
We then hopped onto a tour boat. Now this part was the big let-down of the trip for me. I was under the impression that the boat was taking us to the other-side of the river so that we could walk over to the Leshan Giant Buddha. For those of us that didn't grow up in Sichuan province of China, this is the largest "seated" Buddha in the world and it took something like 80+ years to carve it out of the mountain-side. It was bult during the Tang dynasty. Its quite impressive to see as several people could sit on his big toe. Anyway the boat pulls up alongside the Buddha and we all take some pictures and then after five minutes the boat pulls away and I ask one of our program helpers "Jack" if we get to go see the Buddha up-close and he says, "we have no time". Needless to say I was upset as this was one of the things I really wanted to experience on this trip.
We took the boat back to the small dock and then made our way to a Chinese restaurant and had some lunch. I've included a few pictures of the restaurant because it looked pretty typical of the places we have been going, therefore it gives you a good idea of our experience thus far. The food was good, and we then made our way to a local hotel and Stamen and I roomed up.
We went to a few shrines and temples which was ok, except I really started feeling like a foreign intruder as we were all Americans touting cameras into these sacred places which we knew nothing about. The people usually were kind enough to ignore us, but they would get offended often as people tried to take pictures inside the places of worship, which is forbidden. I started to feel like I was invading the personal space between believer and the sublime so I kind of stepped back and walked around a bit and didn't get to close to the Buddhist people as they did their thing.
We had dinner at the hotel and then a few of us: Stamen, Nathan, Stephen, Greg, Stan, Geoffrey and I wandered around the local area a bit. We found a traveler's hostel in some random alley and talked a bit with a French dude. There was also a cute little puppy dog that pretty much seemed to live in the alley and we played with it for a while. Then the hostel employee brought out a few random games, among them was Chinese Checkers, which I hadn't played since I was maybe 10 or 12 years old. We got a semi-serious game going between Stam, Stephen, Greg and I. I was able to pull out the victory and shortly afterword Stam and I retired to the dorm.
You see the two of us along with Jimmy had decided that we weren't going to be touring with the rest of the USAC group tomorrow. In fact we were leaving around 5am and we were going to hike to the top of Emei mountain! The plan for the rest of the group was to go about halfway up the mountain and see a few temples, have lunch and then go see some wild monkeys (more on that later). We wanted to see the temples and shrines on "Golden Summit" as well as the view from 11,000+ feet of altitude. Emei mountain is one of the Holy Mountains of Buddhism and it has shrines and temples from the bottom all the way to the top.
I woke up too early and wasn't able to fall back asleep so I got up at about 4:40, shortly after that, Jimmy was already knocking at our door as he was eager to get underway.i woke up Stam and we made our way down to the hotel lobby with our bags, we had to bring all of our belongings on the hike as we wouldn't have a chance to come back to the hotel. We went to turn in our hotel keys and the desk woman was sleeping on a cot in full uniform, we woke her up and checked out. Then we made our way to the bus station in the dark.
We had some dumplings on the go for breakfast and walked in a light sprinkle of rain. We got to the bus station before it opened, trying to ensure that we would be on the first bus at 6:15. As is customary in China, few respect the concept of a first come first serve line. As the lights come on in the bus station the line turns into a blob of people trying to stand as close to the door as possible. With the late-comers actually trying to force their way in front of people like us who have been waiting for twenty minutes. Typically I just look at them with a dead stare and posture with my body that I don't want them to get thru. As I am bigger than most of the guys here, this usually works.
We got our tickets, made it onto the bus and proceeded on. As we entered the mountain park we had to get out and buy a ticket, as this is a national park. Then we got back on and proceeded up the mountain. The driver was a bit sketchy as he would pass into oncoming traffic even on blind corners, the only thing to protect us from a head on collision being luck and his constant honking of the horn. In China horn-honking is an integral part of the driving experience. In the United States we mostly honk re-actively, meaning that you honk when someone does something on the road which displeases you or to let them know they are drifting into your lane,etc. in China, on the other hand, you honk whenever you drive close to someone as the streets are like a Nascar track and people drive like race-car drivers. You honk at pedestrians constantly to let them know that you are coming through, even though they have the green to walk across the street. This is normal and not rude at all since in China the pedestrian doesn't really ever have the right of way.
So get to the last stop which is about 2/3rds of the way up this mountain but we now have a big morning ahead of us. We have about 3600 feet of altitude to climb in just a few miles of hiking. Then cable cars weren't open this early so that wasn't even an option. So we began ascending some brutal stone staircases and the altitude made you short of breath very quickly. There were several Chinese youths that tried to use some broken English when they saw us. Two girls looked at us and then one of them quickly spouted out "Hi, hi, hi". We said hello back and they seemed amused, you continued on.
We had been somewhat worried that we would have trouble finding food and drink up the mountain but that wasn't a problem as there were various vendors every few hundred feet with food and souvenir booths. Because we are foreigners they always would make an extra attempt to attract us, despite the language barrier. I finally saw my first piggy bank in China, and I haggled it down to a very modest price and stowed it in my bag for my niece back in California. I purchased a few other bracelets and other trinkets as well.
After a long morning hike we finally made it to the Golden Summit! I was able to take a few pictures of the three of us at the Golden Shrine and then my camera ran out of power! It was my fault for not charging it the night before. The other guys got some good pictures which I'm hoping to obtain from them.
on top of the mountain we approached the Golden Shrine which is like a huge statue but inside is an awesome temple. This was the only temple which I was actually excited to check out. others were interesting but this one was inspiring. Inside I was also able to write my name (in Chinese characters!) in a monks book of prayers, so hopefully I can get a blessing out of this hehe. We then approached the outer edge where you can view for many miles around. At that altitude it is really like looking out the window of a plane, but with the chiseled cliff faces and vast foliage it made for epic and awe-inspiring views of which maybe Jimmy, being his first time climbing a mountain was most impressed! We finished up our rest and started heading down. The climb down was tough on my knees but eventually we made it back to the bus. We packed in and I ended up next to a sort of cute Chinese girl who would doze off, then as the bus turned, she would hit her head on my shoulder and wake up, this was repeated several times, which I found amusing.
We then were able to finally catch up with the other USAC students. We passed them heading the other direction. They had all just seen the famous attraction of wild monkeys. They told us about how baby monkeys had climbed on them. Having only a short time to view, the three of us made our way to the area where wild monkeys came up to (harassed) tourists.
My first experience with a wild monkey sort of killed the fun of it for the rest of my hike. As we approached a narrow wood bridge there was a very bold and large male monkey who was grabbing people as they tried to squeeze past him on the bridge. He was at about shoulder level on the railing. It also didn't help that I was wearing a bright colored shirt and had a huge backpack with me. As I tried to pass him, we made some uncomfortable eye contact and then he reached for my pack. You see these monkeys are known for taking things from people and will climb all over you to do so. I nervously hopped past him and he continued to approach him. My heart beat faster and my fight instincts kicked in. I had a bamboo walking stick with me and I pounded it once against the ground, the monkey then widened his gaze and hissed at me. I no longer had any desire to be around make monkeys.
We past a few other gross-looking monkeys and then finally found a cute juvenile to approach, also a mother monkey with baby holding onto her side, walked right by our feet! On the way back to the van we had one more incident with the mean bridge monkey. As we walked past him, Stam wanted a picture of himself with this monkey in the background. His camera was kind of weak so I needed him to get closer so as to see the monkey.as he slowly backed up the monkey seemed to figure out what was going on and he started climbing toward us, a large contingent of Chinese began to nervously holler as the monkey approached us.
Then, out of nowhere, a Chinese girl (25-30ish) approaches the crazy monkey and peacefully offers her hand. At this point some of us assumed her to be a professional monkey handler, which we came to see, would be quite false. The monkey looked at her and then grabbed her hand, looked her arm up and down and then released her hand. The girl then raised her hand a second time for them monkey to grab/view whatever. The monkey again grabbed her hand and looked puzzled, it pulled her in a little closer and then bit into her arm right above the elbow. The crowd went silent and the monkey then tossed her hand and ran off. The girl gave a delayed cry, which was more like a babies whimper and blood slowly worked its way down her arm. i gave her boyfriend some water so that he could clean the wound. She would need rabies vaccine regardless.In my opinion the monkey thought at first that she was offering food, and when she put out her hand then second time she may have been perceived to be teasing. People hit the monkeys with bamboo and shoot them with slingshots, often.
We made our way back to the van and then we began the trip home. all in all I had an amazing two days. Really seeing quite a bit and making the most of my time. I feel like many of the students get stuck in "herd-mentality", this is an effect of being comfortable in a small group. Many of the students don't want to stray from the herd or really try anything new, or make an effort to see things that THEY want to see. These are the type that go to the same restaurant and bars here EVERY chance they get. These places are fun, don't get me wrong, but in a city of 10 million people, don't you think it would be better to get out more, try different places, and leave the bubble of the dorms/apartments a bit more? I guess to each their own, but its kind of pathetic if you ask me.
When we got back to Chengdu everyone was tired and hungry, allot of people decided to go to Peter's TexMex and I ordered a burger and some fries. Then took a cab back to the dorms, later that night we ended up going with some Chinese girls that we know to KTV. KTV is a generic name for the many karaoke houses in China. Much like back home you pay for a room for a few hours, invite friends, have a few beers, and sing some songs. We were there till about 3am which was pushing my limits as I had awoken before 5am to climb the mountain. But it was fun and all in all a memorable Chinese weekend!
