the many many stairs of emai shan

we're fresh off the mountain and having a relaxing afternoon - first the hot shower, then the good food, and now resting our tired musles while we catch up on email. so here's the scene on Emai Shan...

It's one of the four sacred buddhist mountains in this area. 3000 metres to the top with temples and monastery's along the way. Much different from hiking we've done as the entire way is paved. Sounds easy eh? Ha! Paved with stairs that go on and on and on (one part that has 99 switchbacks).

We start on day 1 with a bus ride and cable car up to 1000 metres. Packs on and we start the trek. We arrive at our planned destination for the night at 4pm (ish). Quads aren't screaming too bad so we decide to walk on. Get to the next main area that has rooms and (perhaps foolishly) decided to walk on. The 'let's just see what's up the road' bug kinda got us as we ended up at the very top of the mountain just as the cable car going down closed for the night (this greatly reduced our negotiating ability for a room). First hotel was full but we did find a place down the road. Don't really want to relive it too much but let's just say it was by far the worst nights accomodation we've had so far. We'd expected a bit of dampness being at the top of a mountain and all but the beds in this place were wet. So wet that i (kathryn) slept (actually neither of us really slept at all) in all goretex - yep, full on rain pants and jacket.

The next morning the entire place was buzzing at 5:30am as the big thing is too see the sunrise. unfortunately with the mist this is a fairly rare occurence. however that's no deterent and someone was banging on our door yelling something early in the morning. we decided to skip it as we were tired, cranky, and both starting to feel some misgivings in our stomach.

A few hours and whole lot of "Do you have the T.P?" later we started to make our way down. After a shaky start it was a great day hiking. Green lush jungle mountains and once we got past the cable car station much fewer people on the trail. Finished the day around 4pm and booked a room at a monastery. Sitting on the bed and peeling off stinky socks we were treated to the sounds of the monks chanting and praying 2 doors down from us. And unlike most, this monastery had hot water. What a treat! And if we ever end up in a turkish prison we won't be surprised by the shower facilities :) Spent a great couple of hours sitting around on the grounds and relaxing. Ate our noodles in the courtyard and played a few rounds of rummy. Currently the ATW rummy score is KL 1010 and KB 880.

The bells starting gonging about 4:30am and so started our last day on the mountain. Started with a very steep climb down. Slow going as the stone steps were wet and our feet are huge compared to the size of the steps. Too bad it was a little misty as we were climbing down into the valleys and surrounded by the mountains. But it was still very cool. Passed through the last of the monkey zones. On the one hand it's wicked to see monkey's up close in their natural environment. On the other hand it seemed a bit zoo like with the monkey's being fed dorito's and constantly teased.

One of the most amazing things going up is seeing the porters that take up the food and drink to the hotels/vendors lining the mountain. Everything that goes up is taken on the back - either a yoke like contraption with a basket on either side or a backpack like thing that is built up to 4 feet tall. not surprisingly water, coke, etc gets more expensive the further up you go. There are also porters that will put you in a seat like apparatus with bamboo poles and carry you up.

We started a new system for learning chinese on the mountain. Not sure if we've mentioned in previous posts but we get stared at an unbelievable amount here and people are often taking our photo. Many people don't ask for the photo but for those that do we ask for one chinese word in return. Of course it only really works if they speak a bit of english to know what we're saying. And for those that just stare we say Ni Hao (hello) and smile. It usually takes them completely off guard and often creates a lot of giggling. But it's kinda hard not to do something when being stared at. Many of the little kids want to say hello in english as it's one of the few words they know. So we have many conversations that are just a bunch of hello's.

Back on the road again tomorrow and heading to the province of Yunnan...

kandk