I'm sorry I almost burned down your thousand year old temple

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After my monkey troubles, I continued my hike upwards. Emei is one tough hike. The entire way up Emei is by stairs. I think on this one trip alone, I had walked up more flights of stairs than my entire life combined. A rough estimate is to say that there are six to seven steps per meter, multiply that by roughly three thousand meters, and you have roughly eighteen to twenty one thousand steps. Which, actually understates it because there are parts where you go back down and then up again. Whatever the case, there's no need to take the elevator anymore, walking up the stairs at work will seem to be a piece of cake from now on.

Several temples dot the trail up to the top. In the heavy fog, stumbling upon a temple in the mist seems to be almost like something in an old movie. The combination of rain and the strenuous climb seems to have scared away all the other tourist. The temples are quiet and serene. The only other people who are here to share the silence with are the monks. That night, I stayed at the Elephant Bathing Pool temple. Night time was cold, the elevation was about 2000 meters and the effects of altitude no doubt had something to do with it. The temple was old and very spartan. The rooms were crawling with insects. I wonder if the monks were religiously allowed to kill bugs. The beds, thankfully, were equipped with electric blankets. Hiking around in the rain, most of my clothes had become wet or damp at this point. I put my warmest piece of clothing on the electric blanket in hopes of drying it for tomorrow, then wore my driest set of clothes and went to sleep. I awoke to an acrid burning smell. It was my electric blanket and it was smoking. It has melted itself and taken my fleece jacket with it. The next morning, I checked out. Apologizing to the monk about the electric blanket. With a Buddha-like benevolence, he said to me in English: "It's okay."

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Photos

Walking in the clouds
Emei Shan is high enough such that you can look down at the top of clouds from the peak.

Woot! I made it!
I can't believe that I walked all the way to the top. Three days worth of hiking. I'm told that the bus ride up is only an hour and a half.

Dragon Fish
Carving at a temple.

The Golden Summit
Multi-face Buddha statue at the Golden Summit. That's the biggest one of those I've ever seen.

At the top
Man I look dorky.

Elephant Bathing Pool
I stayed at this monastery for the night. Nearly set the place on fire. Oops.

Flaming electric blanket
My electric blanket caught fire. Damaged my sweater too.

Big Buddha of Leshan
I went there the day after I came down the Mountain to take it easy and recover while still sightseeing.

Comments

[Ming]

you are lucky you didnt get roasted overnight. it'd be kinda lame to wake up to the smell of your own flesh being grilled.