Enjoying Mt. Emei

Mount Emei is 3077m high, and you can hike from the base around 550m all the way to the summit - if you like. It would be hard to do in a day nevertheless, although I can imagine it would be a great hike which can be spread over a couple of days with overnight stays in the monasteries on the way (all the monasteries offer accommodation here); there is an alternative however. A shuttle bus leaves regularly from the base to several stops, among which the final stop at 2400m. From there you can either hike a little and take a cable car to the top, or hike all the way up. That's what we did, we hiked up - a staircase - and back down to and from the Golden Summit. It was a wonderful hike, through gorgeous nature, and...
with still a lot of old snow on and around the trail! It was cool and foggy weather, although definitely not freezing in this season, there must have been quite a lot of snow before to last that long I guess.

The first part of the trail, until the cable car, is still quite busy; once past the cable car station it got much better

Fire and snow (and fog), at the first monastery on the way up.

Sometimes there was still slippery icy snow on the trail

More slippery snowy trail

Once we got to the summit, the fog became very thick, at times we could not even see 10m far. There are some temples and monuments at the top, but initially we didn't see any of them! You get a funny feeling of dizziness and disorientation with such bad visibility. The top sits on the edge of a high steep cliff, that must be spectacular - if you can see it. We didn't... To have better chances of a clear sky it's better to go early morning, which we didn't do so we knew there was a good chance of ending up in the clouds. In fact, it was also really beautiful and special that way, so no complaints here! With the return bus ride (1,5h each way) and the hike plus the time spent at the top enjoying the place and its atmosphere, it made for a great complete day trip. The bus ride by the way, 52km in the mountains, went through great nature as well. China does have some fantastic nature, let's hope it will be preserved well in the years to come...

The Samanthabhadra at the top was hardly visible

As were the cliffs...

Nor the beautiful temples

Sometimes visibility improved for a while

Burning candles; almost felt like Christmas!

A volunteer photographer made a picture of the two of us, yeey

Today was a more lazy day. We stayed in bed really late (10.30am!), had our breakfast (banana pancakes, yoohoo!), enjoyed coffee (2), did some reading, and eventually headed for a walk to some of the nearby historic temples. We went to Baoguo Temple and Hufu Temple, and really enjoyed these - a visit to Emei would not be complete without a visit to some of the temples! Both are well maintained (Baoguo is about 1000 years old and one of the oldest remaining wooden buildings in China!), in a beautiful natural landscape, and still in active use as well. While Baoguo was in a perfect shape, we preferred Hufu - maybe exactly because the "imperfection" made it feel more active and "real".

Baoguo temple, nice symmetry

Baoguo temple grounds

Hufu bridge, on the way to Hufu Temple indeed

Inside Hufu Temple

Hufu Temple, amidst mountains and lush forest

Tomorrow we'll leaving for Chengdu, 2 days riding (we haven't touched our bicycles for 2 days!!!), hopefully over some feasible roads. It probably won't be the best cycling we've had, but our intention is absolutely to get to Chengdu by bicycle... Some more pictures...