Emei Shan

The Buddha on Emei Shan
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Next, we were off on a bus heading towards Emei Shan. Emi Shan is a special mountain in China and has many significant Buddhist temples and monasteries. On the way, we stopped to spend some time to see Dafo, the largest Buddha in the world. It’s carved in the side of a cliff and is 71 meters high. It’s quite magnificent and the entire park surrounding it is filled with old Buddha carvings and temples.

We arrived late in the day at our first nights accommodation, the monastery in Baoguo. The monastery itself is quite lovely and enchanting. There are 50 monks at this monastery with the oldest being 109 years old. Our accommodations were very sparse and the showers were the most rustic yet, but it was worth it for the setting and the experience. We awoke in the wee hours of the morning to the monks chanting (from 4:30 to 6:30 in the morning).

The very large Buddha in Leshan
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We then headed off we our guide Patrick (whose wife made some wonderful egg sandwiches for us for breakfast) to meet up with our new guide, Zebedee, for our trip up to Emei Shan. We made it up to Emei Shan (Shan meaning mountain) and found the sun above the clouds and also found snow that had previously fallen. So many of the tourists around us were so excited as they had never seen snow. Unforunately, the clouds didn’t allow us to see the beautiful view below, but there was yet another fabulous gold Buddha and temple at the top.

Our fun travel group
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Next on to another monastery for the evening. We walked through gorgeous, lush green forest and gorges which were fantastic. Along the way, we again found some monkeys interested in what we might have to eat. At one point, we all felt as if they were surrounding us for the attack, but we had canes (known as monkey sticks)to beat on the ground to keep them away. At the final ascent to the monastery, we were told that there were 1200 steps on our final ascent to the monastery. It was work, but it was worth it. Very serene and peaceful. This monastery, Hongchunping, only has 15 monks. Our dinner was at this little spot along the way (the Hard Wok Café of all things), where a couple made a wonderful dinner for us. They even treated us to an appetizer of fries which was a little surprise. After dinner, Scott and I had a little table tennis match back at the monastery. The table had seen better days, but it was good fun.

Zebedee & Scott on our walk up to the monastery
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The next morning, Zebedee treated us to a Thai Chi lesson in the courtyard. It was great. We also ordered pancakes at the same little spot for breakfast – apple, banana and chocolate – yummy! We then made our five hour long trek (14km) back down to the Baoguo monastery. It was a wonderful walk through small villages with more temples and lush vegetation. We saw the green tea plants, soy bean plants hung up to dry and various gardens being tended along the way. We had a great lunch in an outdoor picnic area with the best fried noodles that we’ve had yet. We even had to order an extra bowl. We also stopped at a school to see the children – looked to be only in kindergarten, but seemed to enjoy having their pictures taken with us. It was a wonderful day. It was hard to say goodbye to Zebedee as he had been such a great guide sharing much information about the area and his family life. His wife even made us wonderful biscuits for an afternoon snack. He is a great local guide and we’d highly recommend him to anyone who is visiting in the area. He can be contacted at zebedee_china@hotmail.com.

The beautiful views on our walk to the monastery
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Our hike to and from the monastery was one of our favorite times thus far.