Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2010
Ken
007 & a chicken are in a bar. "What's your name?" asks the chicken. The reply “Bond , James Bond. What's your name?”. The reply “Ken, ChicKen”. John, our Chinese guide could just not understand why we found this funny and kept on requesting Ken for lunch. Still he got his revenge by ording this particular Ken fo us!Since we left the Tibetan plateau everything has changed. The scenery is still beautiful but round every bend there seems to be another factory churning out clouds of black smoke and contributing to the thin veil of smog hanging in the air. The fields of barley and oil seed rape have been replaced by acres of fresh green rice paddies. Every inch of land is used for food production - even on the twisty turning mountain roads the grass verge is full of maize plants. It's hot and humid. The towns are bigger, there's more traffic, the road junctions are more complicated - some are more than a match for Spaghetti Junction. We even have motorways now although motorbikes aren't allowed on them. It all has more of an urban feel to it.
We're also back in the land of 5 star hotels. When we turn up at Mount Emei the hotel has an enormous marble foyer complete with grand piano and cocktail sipping guests and eventually several motorbikes!! The staff and management are so excited by our arrival (they don't get many foreign tourists here especially ones on big motorbikes) that they insist some of the bikes are ridden
into the foyer for a photo session. They are like a group of big kids all calling each other over to have their photos taken with the bikes. The novelty doesn't wear off either - when we leave 2 days later there's lots of pomp and ceremony with the local press there to record us all lined up in our gear, next to out rufty-tufty bikes, being presented with farewell gifts off cuddly monkeys. Yes cuddly monkeys - but there is some logic to this, keep reading.
Mt Emei is one of the 4 sacred Buddhist mountains and as such is a pilgrimage site. The whole mountainside is covered in lush tropical jungle dotted with 30 or so temples. Its also inhabited by macaques who over the years have come to associate people with food and now spend their days lining the paths waiting to ambush pilgrims. If you have a back pack on and don't stop to feed them they don't hesitate to jump on your back and investigate it for themselves. Anything that's not strapped down onto your person is fair game and they grab and pull at everything to see what they can make off with.
The trick is to walk past with arms out, palms up and empty to show you have nothing to give. For the Chinese visitors the monkeys are as much a part of the experience as the temples and hence our gifts of cuddly monkeys.
Mt Emei is a Buddhist pilgrimage site but again everything is such a contrast to Tibet; the architectural style of the temples, the way of worshipping, incense sticks instead of butter lamps, pyramids of coke cans in front of the deities (you present the gods with what's important to you), the monks dressed in tunics and baggy trousers rather than orange/maroon robes. Even the Buddhas are different - there are new Buddhas and bodhisattva (like the Laughing Buddha) and even when they are the same the names are different and they are portrayed in a different style - as if it wasn't complicated enough to start with!! The whole place is filled with bus loads of Chinese pilgrims and tourists - in front of the Buddhas they are solemn reverent, bowing with their incense sticks but the next second they are giggly and enthusiastic, happily wandering up and down the slopes chattering away - it
has the feels of a day out in a theme park.
After 7 days of riding without a break we get 2 whole days off at Mt Emei. There's lots to see round here but this is China; we are not allowed to go off on our bikes exploring, they have to stay firmly locked in the car park as we are only allowed on designated roads on designated days as part of the group. So we turn into everyday tourists and take a boat trip to Leshan to see the Dafo Buddha. He's pretty big at 71m and has been hewn out of the surrounding cliff face. He's popular with the Chinese tourists who are lined up at his feet which just emphasises how big he actually is. He sits above the conjunction of 3 rivers where turbulent waters used to plague local boatmen. He was built, in 713, to protect the boatmen and calm the waters which he actually did - as he was carved out the stone from the cliff face was discarded into the river below which altered the currents and made the waters safe!!
After 2 rest days we are ready to hit
fellow road users
looks like they could teach us a thing or two about how to load our bike the road again and tackle the remaining 1500 miles to Beijing. It doesn't sound far away but from now on the roads are going to be pretty hectic and the temperatures will be way over 30 with high humidity. With cuddly monkeys firmly attached to several pillion seats we head out of town accompanied by the local riders club (mostly on 125 or 250cc bikes but all very enthusiastic) and local press with camera men whizzing past hanging out of car windows.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.117s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 11; qc: 31; dbt: 0.0809s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
