Friday, 02.10.2020
The rain followed us all the way from Leshan to Mount Emei and we arrived in the small town at the foot of this important Buddhist mountain somewhat soaked. We planned to drive up to the temples of Emeishan very early the next morning so we took the restaurant recommendation of our hostess, had a nice dinner there and went to bed early. At 5am the next morning we awoke refreshed and well rested and took the car to the park entrance. We were told that there are only a limited amount of cars allowed to enter the road up Mount Emei every day, and I didn’t want to take any chances and be too late. I admit I might have calculated the amount of time we needed to reach the Wannian temple a little too generously, and we drove onto the parking lot under the cover of darkness and more than an hour before it opened. We ate a snack of eggs and Baozi in the car and settled back for another cat nap until the doors opened at dawn.
The rain of the night before left glittering drops of dew all over the trees and conifers along the path and we found ourselves in a quiet and serene forest while taking the climb up the steps to Wannian temple. Under a blanket of mist we walked past closed shops and restaurants until we finally ascended to one of the most important Buddhist temples on Mount Emei.
With the fog clouding the view all around us visiting the temple almost felt like exploring another world. There was a pond on one of the squares that was rumored to have singing frogs in it and I was glad for the excuse to take a quick rest there to see if we might find one of them. Much harder to miss was the massive bronze and marble statue of an elephant with six tusks in the main hall of the temple.
Before the arrival of the local tourists we headed back down and ate a more comprehensive breakfast in one of the now open restaurants. They offered a delicious version of pickled cabbage and radishes with fresh mantou and a bowl of rice soup and were kind enough to refill our thermos with hot water as is customary all over China.
Returning to the parking lot we took our car and drove further up the mountain and changed into an official tourist bus that brought us the remaining kilometers up to Mount Emei. Since it was still early just after noon we settled into our spartan hotel room and caught up on the sleep the sacrificed in the morning. We woke just in time to still make the trip up to the cable car station to check the options for ascending all the way up to the main viewing platform on the Golden Summit. Satisfied that we could make it up there before sunrise the next morning we climbed back down, rain-proofed Jeltes shoes, had dinner and then settled in for the night.
Like the days before we woke up in a big cloud of mist and rain on the day of our ascent to the Golden Summit. Although we were still in pitch blackness during our cable car ride up it slowly became clear to us that it was highly unlikely that we would see the infamous sea of clouds from the top of Mount Emei. It was still a very unique experience to await the highly anticipated sunrise.
rice is the new bread 