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On top of the clouds
The summit at Emei Shan After a relaxing day at Chengdu, we took a bus to Emei Shan, about 2 hours from Chengdu. The place we stayed at was called the Teddy Bear Hotel. Not sure where the name came from. The manager of the hotel, Andy, was quite helpful in outlining routes to climb the mountain. He was also very talkative about his hotel unfortunately he was not very intelligble so we did a lot of nodding and "that's nice" not having any idea what he said.
Day 1: Stairway to heaven?
There are two main routes to the top of the moutain. Typically, people take 2 or 3 days for the ascent and descent. We decided on taking a bus quite a ways up the first day.
Going into the "hike", we knew that it was going to be mostly stairs. There are also a large number of wild monkeys on the moutain. From the onset fo the hike, the large number of stairs became quite obvious. There is not a whole lot to say about the journey up on the moutain other than there are a lot of stairs. A lot of stairs. The entire way up was stairs. Unfortunately, the
views were also less than spectacular. After just over two hours, we reached the top, where we were greeted with a very large Budhist statue that was quite impressive. The clouds prevented us from having much of a view of the surrounding area. Supposedely, on a clear day one can even see some of the Himalayas. Not the case for us!
After a few minutes of walking around the top, we began to reevaluate our plan on the mountain. Originally, we were going to "hike" (I use that term loosely as I don't consider walking up and down stairs really hiking) down a ways and stay at a monastary for the evening. From there, we would descend along what was supposed to be a more scenic route. Given our lack of excitement for the mountain and the reputation of many of the monataries not being the most comfortable places to stay, we decided to abandon the moutain for the day. So, we hiked down to where we were originally dropped off and took the bus back to the Teddy Bear Hotel.
The experience was rather underwhelming. A lot of stairs, not great views and we did not even
A much prettier path around Emei Shan
Two bridges lead up to the the entrance of a temple see one monkey!
Moutain Day 2: Redemption or renewed frustration?
Well, today ended up being redemption for the mountain. We took a bus to a lower area of the mountain in order to do some hiking on the southern route. While still all paved, at least this time we did not feel like we were on a stairclimber the entire time.
About an hour into the hike, we came upon one of the monkey areas. This was quite an experience. There were dozens of monkeys in the area and they are quite accustomed to humans. Unfortunately, it was kind of chaos. Hordes of Chinese tourists shuffling through the narrow walkways, photographers trying to sell their services, and rather aggressive monkeys. Mike actually had a monkey grab a water bottle from the back of his pack and run off! Laura was not a fan of the monkeys.
We got through the area and continued with our journey. The scenery was quite nice this time. Lush forests, waterfalls and nice mountain views. An added bonus is that we came across far fewer tourists, giving the day a much more relaxed feeling. On the way down we came across another
group of monkeys. These in a less controlled environment. There was a group of adolescent appearing monkeys in the middle of the path. When we were trying to get through they became rather aggressive. One lady who was walking with us actually got bit on her hand! As we were waiving our sticks at them, one of the monkey actually grabbed Laura's stick and tried to pull it away!
We finished our descent and took the bus back to the Teddy Bear. Both of us were much more positive with our experience.
Stop over in Chengdu
The morning after hiking we took a bus back to Chengdu, returning to our favorite guesthouse, Sim's, again (ping pong!) before flying out to Shanghai on Thursday (May 25). Mike spent some time talking with another traveler. A rather...well...deranged German living in Shenzen for the past 8 years. Mike learned a number of interesting things, such as: For years the US has had a major objective of reducing the world's population. Toward this aim, a group of scientists were given $20 billion in the 1960s and created the AIDS virus, which they then secretly injected into people in Africa. Of course, there
is documentation and an organization chart of this. Also, Mike learned that George Bush's grandfather gave money to Hitler that enabled him to start World War II. Without Bush's grandfather's money, Hitler would not have been able to do anything. Hmmmmmm. Unfortunately, as the guy did not stop talking, Mike was unable to enquire whether Hitler, John F Kennedy and Elvis are living as roommates in the Amazon rainforest.
In the evening we went out for Indian food that Laura was craving and later watched a movie.
Now it is onto Shanghai, which has been one of the major centers of China's economic growth. We are both looking forward to what should be a very interesting city.
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