Leshan and Emei Shan, Sichuan Province, China 10.04

The Giant Buddha

Leshan is famous for its Giant Buddha. It is the largest outdoor buddha in the world. It is 71m tall and is carved on a cliff face. We climbed the steps to the top to get a good view of it. It was incredible, and difficult to imagine how anyone could carve anything that size.
The view from up there was amazing. You could see over the whole horizon, and down to where three rivers joined with a very strong current. This is the reason the buddha was built, to protect the boats as they battled the strong rivers.
We wandered off on our own and discovered many other beautiful things on the mountain. There were many tea houses and people playing mahjong.

These sexy glasses were sported by most men of this age, mmmm.

There were museums, galleries, gardens with ponds full of fish and turtles. There was a tall pagoda at the top of the mountain, and a large temple as well.

Sleeping in a Monastery

We made our way to Emei Shan after that, where we arrived at our accomodation for the night. The Baoguo Monastery - yep a real monastery! They had a curfew of 9pm and there was no smoking and no drinking. It was a beautiful place, and thankfully we weren't woken up in the morning by the monks chanting at 5am, as they usually do. Other people weren't so lucky.

Mount Emei
We set off in a bus to get to Mount Emei. Mount Emei is 3099m tall. We climbed up to a certain level by steps, and then we took a cable car up the rest of the way. The cable car was pretty impressive, it was so fast and so many people fit inside. That could have been because we were all so tightly fit in together - 100 person capacity.

The ride to the top was through the clouds. It felt like we were taking a cable car to heaven. We couldn't see anything out the windows excepts white. When we stepped off, we were surprised to find snow swept off the footpaths and carparks in huge piles.
We climbed many staircases to reach the golden monument at the top. There were hundreds of candles lined on the steps of it, the whole way around. There were 3 temples all together. A gold one - inside the monument, a silver one and a bronze one.
On our way down the stairs, we noticed hundreds of locks attached to the railings. Apparently young people attach locks there and throw away the key, to signify their eternal love.
On our way back to the bottom, we saw a lot of monkeys. One grabbed a tourist's bag and the monkey police had to come and get it back. It's quite funny, they let the monkeys wander amonst the humans, but they can be dangerous, so the monkey police watch them at all times. Another person had their water bottle taken. The monkey unscrewed the lid and drank all the water! We were given bamboo canes at the monastery to scare away the monkeys if they came too close.


Trek to the Mountain Monastery
We took a bus back to another point in the mountains, and here we started a trek towards the monastery we were to stay at this night. The monastery was quite high in the mountains, so we packed light, and headed off on our trek.

It started to rain almost as soon as we started to walk. We ignored it at first, but after a while we all pulled out our plastic rain coats. Some of the boys got pastel pink, purple and yellow coloured raincoats, which looked quite camp and hilarious!


We crossed two bridges which rocked when you walked on them. The whole group tried to make it rock even more while running along it. Even if you tried to run in a straight line, you'd be running in a zig-zag from one side to the other.

The walk was beautiful despite the rain. There were many little gazebos along the way where people were seeking shelter from the rain, and selling souvenirs and raincoats. There were waterfalls everywhere, cliffs and carvings in rock, and the river was so clear.
The most impressive of all was the stone steps that were built on every trail of the mountain. Each massive stone was carried up the mountain on a man's shoulders to where it lies now. Even all the way to the monastery and beyond. Even today, all the food that is served up the mountain and at the monastery, is carried up there on foot.

For the old or weak, there are pairs of men with stretcher chairs who offer to carry you to where you are going. It's quite expensive, but when you think about what they're doing, it's probably only fair.
The walk was relatively easy. Most of the time the track didn't rise or fall too much. But at the very end, they told us to rest before continuing. Artur and the others wanted to push on ahead because the guide had been stopping so frequently and it was frustrating, so we continued without a rest. The remaining 20 minutes was the toughest part of the whole trek. The steps became very steep and there was no flat sections, just more and more steps.

We finally reached the top, where there was a little cafe. We crashed here, grabbed a drink and recovered. After climbing the last flight of stairs, we made it to the monastery. The monastery was beautiful, and there were many courtyards and levels. The bathrooms and showers were a little rustic though. The showers were communal - guys and girls separate but no doors on each shower. The toilets were holes in the concrete with small concrete dividers between each. The windows opened onto a beautiful mountain view though.
After recovering from the hike, we played table tennis, and had dinner at the cafe. Loren tried one of the homemade spirits that they had there - it was supposed to have therapeutic purposes - arthritis etc. Very strong though! After dinner we played mahjong, Loren won one game with an exceptional hand, and was very pleased!

The next morning, Loren dragged herself out of bed to participate in a Tai Chi class that our local guide Zebedee was giving. We had already been kept awake since 5am by the chanting and the drums of the monks. The Tai Chi was ok, but it was quite slow. Kung Fu was a lot more energetic and challenging.
Before we left for breakfast, Zebedee insisted that we wait and watch him perform a routine for us. He is about 60, and in surprisingly good shape. He was quite flexible in his performance, and he demonstrated his ability to run up a long flight of stairs earlier. He insisted on performing his routine again further down the mountain, because only a few of us came to watch before. Then he ran another little class on Tai Chi. He seemed to be a bit of a show-off, but you couldn't deny that he tried very hard to please. He was so eager to please though, that he kept stopping about every ten metres to see if anyone needed to go to the toilet or have a break, and the wait for the slower people to catch up. It was hard to keep any sort of pace with this stop and start routine.
Artur saw some funny signs above the urinals. The translations into English were a little shaky, and we're still not completely sure what some of them are trying to say.
There were a lot more monkeys on the way back down the mountain, which was exciting. But it seemed like every time we got ready to take a shot with the camera Zebedee would raise his rock and scare them away, or the monkey police would do the same. It was quite funny, Zebedee would hold a rock out like a crucifix and the monkeys would run for their lives.
We finally got back to Baoguo monastery, but we found out that a huge group of monks had arrived, and we couldn't stay there anymore. They took us further from the village to another monastery, but this time it was full of female monks! It was so exciting! But we struggled to get pictures of them. It was amazing, they all had shaved heads too, and wore light tan coloured robes.

The Hot Springs

We took a trip to the hot springs which were quite nearby. They were the most sophisticated and impressive ones we had ever seen. There were at least 15 individual or group spas outside, but they were soooo hot! Up to 44 degrees! There were spas of all different temperatures inside, one with a waterfall, bubble spas, a big normal swimming pool. They even offered back scrubbing services for when you have a bath or shower!
The best of all was a pool filled with pirahnas! You had to pay extra, but you could swim in the pool of tiny pirahnas, and they would eat the dead skin from your body. Loren was excited by the concept, but a little scared, so she just put her feet in the water at first. The fish back swim away as soon as you put anything into the water, but slowly they approach, and start to nibble. It was very ticklish, especially on your feet! After visiting other baths.
Loren finally got the courage to go the whole way into the water. Even her chin was underwater! It wasn't as bad as you might imagine, the other parts of the body weren't ticklish like the feet, it was just very strange to see yourself as fish food.

Journey of the Tibetan Monk

We were extremely lucky to see this sight on one of our bus trips between points on the mountain, our guide said he had never seen it in his 6 years in China. This is a Tibetan monk, and monks of this particular kind go on long holy pilgrimages, but not in the usual fashion of walking. These guys stand up, raise their hands (protected by wood boards) and fall to the ground. They then stand up, take a step and fall again. This is how they travel for thousands of miles on their holy pilgrimages.