We began our trek to Leshan on Emei Shan late on Saturday morning. Slow breakfasts, troublesome
ATMs, and long lines at the bus station meant that we disembarked at the Leshan Long-Distance Bus Station at 12:30 pm. A few minutes of looking lost and a nice local pointed us to the right bus and then escorted us there. We popped off the bus at the docks to discover that we'd missed the last boat across the river to the Buddha. A taxi took us across the bridge for less than $1 - more efficient but less picturesque.
We wandered around the grounds and temple before deciding, at around 4 pm, that the line for 
the Buddha was short enough to stand in. 45 sunburnt & sweaty minutes later, we were standing at the foot of Dafo, the 71 meter high stone Buddha that took 80 years to carve from Lingyun Shan beginning in 713.
Dafo translates to great Buddha, but that really doesn't do him justice. He's enormous! "The Buddha is a mountain. The mountain is a Buddha," explains the brochures.
Unfortunately, the only exit was on the far site of Dafo and we had to race up the narrow stairs and down the mountain's far side to reach our bus to Emei Shan - which we missed. With a little broken Chinese, pointing at signs, and hand gestures, and a lot of luck, we ended up on a bus back to the long distance bus station and only the last bus of the day to Emei town, 7 km from the mountain.
The guesthouse we reserved near Baguo Si, at the base of Emei Shan, was overbooked. Andy, the nice, if distracted, proprietor of the Teddy Bear Guesthouse took us to his "sister's" hotel down the road, where, after a little discussion, we agreed to stay in one room with a gigantic bed. It had AC and a TV showing a newish Jackie Chan flick (no English, but you don't watch Jackie for plot anyway) and the bed slept three across quite easily. Back at Andy's for dinner, we had lovely chocolate & banana pancakes (crepes really) for dessert. Mac and Alex taught a local college kid who introduced himself as "Francis" to play gin-rummy - it's really a lot like Mah Jong - while I procured hiking tips from the staff.
Mt. Emei is amazing, though our first day was far from relaxing. The heat and the crowds between Wainnian Si and Qingyin Pavilion were oppressive. You might think you've experienced crowds, but until you've visited a major tourist site on a weekend during school holidays in China, you really haven't (doubtless there are some places in India that are similar). Of the two of us, Mac is more sensitive to heat but I am more sensitive to noise. I can take sweltering quiet for a a good long while, but add thousands of shouting tourists and vendors trying to sell them things, and my resolve simply fails.
We actually took a wrong turn and ended up heading down the mountain until and old man at a very quiet "snack counter" set us right. After selling us drinks, a map, a fan, some rice gruel and pickled cabbage, of course. The rest and food dis us some good and we plowed back into the crowds at Qingyin Pavilion where we got back on the southern route to the top. The next hour or so past streams of bathers and chaperoned monkeys wasn't bad and the crowds completely evaporated past the "ecological monkey habitat" as most tourists headed back down to catch a bus to the summit.
With the trail finally quiet enough to hear the birds and bugs and frogs and for butterflies (Emei has hundreds of varieties) to begin to make an appearance, we began to really enjoy ourselves. After 7 hours of hiking (though some of it in the wrong direction) we stopped at Hongchunping monastery for the night.
The second day was at once wonderful and grueling. The scenery is amazing and the temperature dropped some, but the whole climb involves well over 10,000 steps that seem endless.
We each had our own pace on the stairs. I found them rather meditative and can climb slowly and steadily for a long time when only thinking about one step at a time. At one point I passed Mac at a pavilion, "Can't stop now; I'm in a groove."
The demographic of the Emei Shan tourist had totally changed. Sunday's walk was dominated by middle class families with kids. Monday we saw a few families and groups of young people but far more older to elderly climbers, many wearing only hand woven rope sandals.
At one point, Mac said the climb felt a bit like Frodo and Sam. "Sure," I said, "If Moria had snack stands every couple of kilometers."
We climbed more on Monday than we planned. Xisheng Si (Elephant Bathing Temple) was our intended stopover for the night. However, we didn't realize it when we passed it - went through it actually - and kept on climbing until we hit the junction with the road the snakes up the other side of the mountain to the cable car to the summit.
After 9 hours of climbing, we were faced with a choice of going back to Xisheng (yeah, right), staying at the unappealing hotels near the road, slogging on for another couple of hours to the summit, or taking a 15 minute ski lift ride to the top. What do you think we did?
It's too bad we were so tuckered and didn't take photos of the summit when we arrived. The view is amazing, looking down on a sea of clouds with shadows of trees and lower peaks occasionally coming into view.
The following morning, the summit was wrapped in a cloud. Alex and I dressed by flashlight at 4:55 am (as not to wake Mac who does not do sunrise) and watched the fog grow lighter and lighter for about an hour. We were a touch early for sunrise (apparently the hotels do a wake-up call at 5:25 for all guests and were on the Golden Summit Temple viewing platform in the dark by ourselves for a bit. Slowly we were joined by shadows of other mumbling tourists. At one point it started to drizzle and all the Chinese tourists vanished, leaving me, Alex, and some guy from Boston huddled under an overhang watching the fog grow brighter.
After a nap, we checked the fog at the summit one more time and took the cable car and then the bus back to the base of the mountain for more chocolate pancake and a bus back to Chengdu.
guide to scary household objects and a few not so scary things.
