Part 2: Sichuan Province

(1/27/07) We had already spent eighty six hours riding trains in less than two weeks. We stopped in Xi’an for a day and then decided to just fly to Chengdu. It took us two hours to fly when it would have taken another twenty to ride the train again. We arrived in Chengdu (Sichuan Province) in the evening and rode a taxi into the city. Ben had arranged for us to meet up with his classmate who is a native to Chengdu, and travel with him during our stay. We met his friend, Yuan Fan, at the Chengdu Petroleum Hotel. Yuan Fan’s father works in the petroleum industry and he let us use his VIP card at the hotel. We got a really nice and comfortable hotel room for a really low price of 120 kuai. We went out that night and had a really good Sichuan style dinner. Sichuan is famous for its food, especially its spicy food.

We spent the first day in Chengdu relaxing. Chengdu is known for its laid-back lifestyle and easy-going activities such as playing mahjong (Chinese chess) and sipping tea at its many teahouses. Yuan Fan showed us around downtown and treated us to some Sichuan food. The rest of the day we sat outside with some tea and discussed our plans for the rest of the week.

The next morning, we got up at 7:00 and took a bus to Emei town, about two hours away. We spent the day visiting Leshan Dafu, the largest carved Buddha statue in the world. It was in a park with other various Buddhist statues tucked among green fauna. We experienced really comfortable weather in Sichuan and enjoyed all the green plants. We ate a big dinner that night and went to bed early. Our main event would start the next day, to climb Emei Shan.

It took us two full days to hike up to the top of Emei Shan (Emei Mountain). Forty kilometers straight up, but it was the most fun experience we had on our trip. We started the first day at Emei town, which lies at the bottom of the mountain, and began our ascent from there. Mount Emei is a very well known and visited cultural site in China, and is a sacred spot for Buddhists. The bottom and the top are full of tourists and day walkers. Most people just take the cable cars to the summit, but we were looking for a challenge and some interesting stories. Along the way, the three of us rotated our two backpacks around every hour. One thing that I found amazing was the stone walkway that was built the entire way up through the mountains. Only in China could there be such a construction. The whole two days we hiked, that path never ended, and we just kept following it up.

We started early in the morning and the sun was bright and shining nicely off the green tree canopy. The bottom had an almost subtropical feeling that felt a bit out of place, but comforting. There was an abundance of bamboo maybe reaching higher than thirty feet tall. Small rest stops, temples, and locals spotted the path, but became fewer and fewer the higher the ascent. We had brought food and water for two days worth, but managed to buy food easily along the way.

There was beautiful scenery along the whole way and we simply passed time by talking. We took a rest the first day on the side of a clear, cool mountain stream surrounded by lush green plants. That was very surreal for us, it being January and us coming from Beijing. The first day of hiking, the weather and climate of the mountain was really great. In the afternoon, we came to a wide river stream that cut through a small canyon. It was such a nice place, the Emei monkeys like to hang out there. Emei Shan is famous for its wild monkeys. Since it was winter, most monkey activity was low, but we got our chance to see here. The monkeys here are notorious for harassing visitors by stealing and attacking them. We were always prepared to encounter the monkeys, but I guess they were too cold to come out. Across the next bridge was a big group of monkeys. Lots of travelers crowded cautiously around taking pictures and giving special monkey snacks to them. The monkeys kept climbing on top of the visitors and annoying them, so that’s why there were local people there to help. Men and mostly women, who apparently lived there, stood guard to help people get up the mountain monkey free. Most of them had bamboo sticks, rocks, and slingshots. We crossed the bridge to the monkeys and got a close look at some of them. They were jumping and climbing all over people though. A big monkey king, about four feet tall, latched onto Ben’s leg, and a little monkey climbed on his back. A monkey jumped on the back of my backpack and then hopped off my head and ran away. An old woman guided us through the rest of the monkey pack, pointing her sling shot at any mischievous monkeys that came our way. When they saw her, they backed away with fear. I could see why those monkeys were afraid. Lots of old women were whacking them with bamboo sticks and throwing stones at them. We got back onto the main path and an old man said he should come with us to keep anymore monkeys from bothering us since we were still in their territory. After a while, he said it was okay and went back down.

The rest of the afternoon, we hiked up and up. It only became steeper and we were climbing on all fours most of the time. We enjoyed it though, and just took in the sights of the mountains. At about 6:30 P.M., we started seeing snow and ice. Luckily, we had arrived at our rest stop for the night. It was a Buddhist monastery that also offered housing for mountain travelers. It was snowy and cold now. When we got to the monastery, the people outside welcomed us and invited us to eat in their little restaurant outside. We had a good dinner and then went to our room. It was a really small room, white walls, two beds, a small table, and a light bulb hanging from the ceiling. We soaked our feet in hot water and warmed our beds. The beds had electric blankets. This wouldn’t be the first time the electric blanket would save us from spending a freezing night, like we did in Tibet.

Around 6:00 A.M. the next morning, we woke up to the sounds of somber bells and chanting from the courtyard outside. We got out of bed to the freezing cold air soon after, put on our warm clothes, and trudged our way outside to the stone cold bathrooms. Our friend, Yuan Fan, didn’t sleep well that night so he slept in while me and Ben went out to explore. We heard about a cave nearby the monastery and went to search for it along a snowy path. The mountain was completely silent and blanketed in a white, cold snow. It was very calm and strange. There were no other people around either. Me and Ben followed a couple of paths to find the cave. We passed a silent shrine on a peak, and then followed the path along the cliff side until we found the cave. Old, colorful sutra flags were fluttering in the wind around the cave entrance. It was deserted at the time, so we just went in. It was completely dark. A stone stairway led us down further into the pitch black cave. We used the light of Ben’s cell phone and my key chain flashlight to guide our way. It was just enough. We got down to the bottom, and found one small light shining. We found a shrine to some Buddhist deity that was nicely arranged and cleaned. Nothing we hadn’t seen before, but it was more fun to find it at the bottom of a cave. We found another path behind the shrine and followed it until it ended with an iron gate and a warning sign. I think they put the dead monks down there behind that gate. We climbed back out of the cave after taking some pictures, and made our way back to the monastery to meet Yuan Fan and continue up the mountain.

There was ice and snow the rest of the way up to the top. We bought iron spikes from the locals and attached them to the bottoms of our shoes. We hiked and hiked like the first day, but had to be careful not to slip on the ice. We didn’t pass very many people the second day since conditions were not very favorable. We stopped to eat our packed lunch outside an abandoned rest stop. Signs kept warning of wild monkeys, but it was too cold for them to come. We kept our sticks at the ready though. We had a lot of fun the second day and enjoyed the great sights and snowy mountain peaks. That afternoon, we started to reach the top. We could see the tourist crowds in the distance. There was a cable car, bus station, restaurants, hotels, and souvenir shops near the peak. It was disappointing to see after so much work to reach the top, but we just kept climbing past it. Most of the other people were surprised when they realized we actually liked to hike the whole mountain. In the evening, we finally reached a little hotel at the peak. It was a normal hotel, but freezing cold. We ate dinner in a freezing cold room, then went back to our room, turned on our electric blankets, and sat in our beds the rest of the evening.

We woke up early the next morning to see the sunrise. We went to the very top, but it was too cloudy that morning. The sunrise at Emei Shan is famous for its beauty. The peak is above the clouds, and sometimes it appears like you are standing in the sky. We got a wonderful view over the mountain range we had just hiked though, and it was still great. We had hiked forty kilometers through the mountains, and had seen sub tropical climate change to snowy evergreens. We took the bus back down the mountain and immediately caught a bus back to Chengdu. We got back to our nice hotel that afternoon and rested up.
We celebrated the end of our climb by eating Sichuan style hot pot. Hot pot is basically a big pot of hot water and oil, and then you stick various pieces of food inside to cook it. Sichuan style hot pot is full of spices though and in my opinion is much better than hot pot from the north.

The next few days we decided to visit various places around Chengdu, but most of our attempts failed due to getting lost or having to use the poor transportation system. The public buses were the most troublesome we had seen before. Twice, we got stuck with taking the inefficient bus. First, you would have to buy your ticket at the bus station and then wait for the bus to completely fill up with people before departing. The drivers usually took bumpy back roads that just slowed things down. The bus workers must have tried to make as much money out of one trip as possible. Whenever somebody got off the bus, they would keep stopping along the road to fill up the bus again. This stopping and going would continue the entire way, and double the time it took to get anywhere. So, if you go to Sichuan, be wary of taking the standard buses.

So, the last few days in Sichuan province were uneventful. We basically just tried to enjoy as much good food as possible before we left. We said goodbye to our friend Yuan Fan and continued south on our way to Yunnan province.