15. Hotel on a mountain ridge

Heading south from Chengdu, Five-foot and I were nearly at Emei Shan experiencing the best of roads and the worst of roads earlier in the morning, and were passing through broken down, dirty old towns. The bus driver overtook the many three wheeled trucks that wavered all over the road while being driven as slowly as possible. A large truck that had been parked in a ditch had subsequently overturned and was being unloaded by hand. This would’ve held up traffic on the blind corner had the bus driver, or any other drivers cared to take precautions.

“So are we gonna walk up?” I asked, not really favouring the hard slog option of climbing the mountain we were approaching.

“There’s a bus that goes nearly the whole way up,” Five-foot replied. “If you’re not feeling up to it, there’s always that.”

“Dunno,” I said, “I might look a bit too much like a Chinese tourist.”

Five-foot looked me up and down and said “I don’t think anyone will mistake you for one. There’s still a bit of a gut there.”

The week in Beijing after returning from my trip with Karl was spent mainly on Five-foot’s couch, as I had a head cold stuffing up my nose, throat and eyes. The cold was so severe that I couldn’t do anything and needed Five-foot to turn nursemaid for me providing food services to save me from going outside. He had been great although I’m sure he would’ve drawn the line had I needed a Vicks Vaporub service. Now though, I still wasn’t 100 percent and Five-foot wasn’t feeling the greatest either. Neither of us felt up to the task of climbing to the top of Emei Shan.

At the city of Emei, we caught a private but to the township at the bottom of Emei Shan. The township is very tourist focused with each hotel, restaurant, grocery store and public toilet sponsored by the same brand of iced tea. Every building to be seen along this street had the same billboards and the same branding materials above their doors. Each hotel, side by side, looked like one large establishment.

We went for a walk up the road to the entrance to the mountain path and met a few German tourists who asked for directions to a hotel. Their bus had dropped them at the top of the street whereas our taxi had stopped midway up directly outside the hotel we agreed to stay at. We helped them out by pointing down the town’s one street with all the buildings on the one side. It was going to be a challenge for them to become somehow lost.

At dinner, I read the notes written on the wall from foreigners who’d been to Emei Shan in the past. Some were positive and some were not.

“The views from the top are magnificent,” James wrote.

“It’s just a big tourist blight,” wrote Hans.

“Emei Shan sucks,” wrote someone anonymously. “I wish I never came.”

“I quite liked it,” wrote someone else as a response.

I wondered what Five-foot and I might write on the wall in a couple of days.

The hotel we stayed at was situated above the outdoor dining area where we had dinner that night, which was subsequently filled with lots of noisy people drinking well into the small hours of the morning. As a result, we got little sleep.

We hadn’t decided whether to walk up or take a bus, but the visit to the station two minutes walk down the street made the decision for us. Due to Five-foot and I both recuperating after said head colds and both being decidedly unfit anyway, we caught a bus up the mountain the next day.

The road was surprisingly well built. I was expecting a goat track, shingle and potholes all the way up, but instead a sealed, two-lane road carried vehicles to the top. It was testament to the demand tourists placed on the area. Sometimes the comforts of tourism were too enjoyable to complain about.

The ride was enjoyable for a while with nice green scenery surrounding the road winding up the steep climb until the driver stopped and handed out vomit bags. Promptly a woman filled up a bag threw it out the window and continued to fill more bags over the course of the next hour’s zigzagging. The bus arrived at the large car park at midday.

The options from the bus stop were to walk up the staircase to the summit, which would take two hours, or line up for the cable car with the hundreds of others. Without discussing it, we headed for the staircase probably due to feeling dirty for taking the bus.

Similar to Hua Shan, the path and staircase were made like a brick road. We passed all manner of people walking up and down, and again, the clothes Chinese people were climbing in were hard to ignore. Dress shoes, like those Kiwi men wear to the office, and high heels like Kiwi men wear when their wife is out of town, was the norm. It wasn’t such difficult hiking that one would need boots but Five-foot and I both wore running shoes, which I thought would be essential for comfort. Maybe Chinese people are tougher than me.

Small housing areas, food stalls and restaurants, alike the ones Sam, Karl, Jan and I encountered while climbing the Hua Shan staircase, were situated along the route. Chickens and dogs roamed free, and people were perched on seats enjoying a drink of tea or coke, or burying their faces in a bowl of rice. Walking past, I would gain the usual attention and a quick smile and greeting would be returned tenfold.

The summit of Emei Shan, at three thousand metres, offers amazing views in all directions, an amazing Buddhist temple sitting at the edge of a sheer cliff face. It is phenomenal that a staircase has been built this high and even more phenomenal that at the top of that staircase, there is a large temple centuries old. It must’ve taken amazing dedication getting those materials to the top of the mountain without the aid of today’s technology.

Hundreds of metres below, with cloud resting in between the bottom of the mountain and the top, farmland and forest merged in the distance, rivers looked like worms, and there was no sign of civilisation in any direction. Surrounding the mountain, other towering peaks were all covered in lush green vegetation and clouds rolled over the peaks leaving a breathtaking sight.

The summit proper was maybe a hundred metres away from the temple, but the only way to get there was via monorail priced at Y50. It took passengers only a few metres higher than the temple so we skipped it. There were the medallion salespeople at the temple too. We skipped them as well.

I took a few snapshots and was approached by a couple of people, including a monk who wished to have a photo with my now grown out blonde Mohawk. Five-foot suggested they were also attracted by the ginger-ness of my beard. It was difficult to refuse so I cheesed up and continued baring teeth while others lined up for a photo with me. My cheeks were aching from the strain within a few minutes, so Five-foot saved me by telling the gathering crowd we wanted to eat lunch.

On the way down from the summit, we passed a few different groups of pilgrims who were making their way to the Buddhist temple at the top. They stopped every three steps to drop to their knees and touch their foreheads to the path in homage. They do this all the way from the bottom of the mountain. It must take a week.

We had to dodge the many porters as they ran past us at velocity. They were similar to the men carrying provisions up Hua Shan, although instead of provisions, these men carried people. With two men to a seat or harness, hikers would pay to get carried up the hill by these extremely fit men. We would be walking down, hear a thump-thump-thumping accompanied by heavy breathing and then, from around a corner, men would come running towards us from up the hill or down, carrying people. We could barely carry ourselves down and they were running. The staircase was very steep in places and at the speed these men travelled, I wondered what would happen if one lost his footing. Three people lost over the edge of a cliff, I suspect.

At 2070 metres, Xixiangchi, Elephant Bathing Pool, sits amongst the plant life on a peak jotting out from the mountain. It is mainly a large monastery, but also consists of a hotel and restaurant. An hour before we got there, the staircase above gave a great view of the brown roof of the monastery all but shining like a beacon on the otherwise forest rich green ridge. With darkness approaching when we arrived, stars and the moon shining in the still blue sky, we didn’t have much choice but to stop there for the night. We rented a room at the hotel, foregoing the very humble beds available at the monastery, and sat outside enjoying the view above the minimal clouds. The Hilton it certainly was not, with a communal toilet that consisted of a pit with four gaps for people to squat over.

Five-foot and I walked around the monastery for a short reconnoitre before dinner and saw a young man get attacked by a couple of monkeys. It left everyone else alone, so I jumped to the conclusion that the man was teasing it. I couldn’t understand why, because these violent little critters weren’t so little, and were scary as hell when they bore their teeth and began barking. It was the first we had seen of any monkeys, and the sight made me feel like we were walking into a very untamed part of the jungle. The locals explained that monkeys tended to dominate the jungle further down the mountain and we would encounter them sooner or later.

Still browsing around the monastery, we saw a mother monkey carrying her baby on her back. Five-foot tried to take a photo of this unique bit of nature but the mother got spooked by a man walking down the path and took off into the jungle.

While we were eating, the hotel was surprisingly busy with barely a seat in the place empty. Staying there was a mixture of young Chinese travellers of university age, the mountain porters and a few older men wearing the old blue uniforms known as the Mao suit handed out by the government forty years previously. Others wore old army fatigues, probably all the clothing they had after being made redundant from the Chinese armed forces. When the government dishes out redundancies from the army they do it by the million.

We sat at a table with the owner of the hotel and a few porters, eating a big meal that was surprisingly tasty.

The owner asked me how old I was and inquired if I was married.

“No,” I said.

“In China, if a man is not married by the age of twenty-six, it probably indicates something,” he said, Five-foot translating.

“Not in New Zealand,” I said, trying to hold onto any self-esteem I had left. Even in China I couldn’t avoid my failings with women.

One of the porters began talking Five-foot into using his crew for a ride down the hill the following day. Five-foot was keen to try but I couldn’t afford it.

“I won’t do it then,” he said.

“I don’t mind meeting you somewhere,” I told him.

“Yeah, but getting separated here, it’s not like you can get the mall intercom to page me when you get scared.”

“So my trick of walking around crying until someone helps will be kinda useless, you think?”

“Yeah,” Five-foot said. “Let’s skip it. Best to stick together.”

It turned out Five-foot was going to offend the porter due to already expressing interest and now having to turn him down. It wasn’t as easy as telling him that we were no longer interested.

“Tell ya what,” I said to Five-foot, “I’ll pretend to be interested right now, but say we’ll work out if we can afford it later. I’m not going to do it though.”

A few minutes later, after Five-foot had been speaking to the porter, the hotel owner spoke to him about me and Five-foot interpreted. It turned out this guy understood some English and knew what I had just said. All I could do was smile at him and excuse myself and hopefully learn from my mistake.

Sitting outside under the stars would have been amazing considering the absolute isolation and beautiful terrain was lit up by the moonlight, but the hotel staff warned us that the monkeys were less timid at night. So we went to bed after dinner, the hotel being extremely loud with creaking floorboards and monkeys barking into the night.

The clock read 715AM when I gave up trying to rest. The sounds of monkeys and hotel patrons kept me awake all night. Five-foot had the same problem.

The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the mountains looked pristine as we set off from Xixiangchi walking through the monastery to get to the staircase down the hill. Birds sang and monkeys barked so we were easily talked into buying a walking stick each for protection purposes. I would rather have had Steve Irwin, the crocodile guy, but we were in a pretty remote area to expect him to happen along.

Thirty minutes after resuming our long walk down the mountain, we bumped into the German tourists from the town at the bottom of the hill as they sat at a shop on the staircase. They were on the way up, having started at the bottom the day before while we took the bus, and offered a few warnings about the monkeys and restaurants along the way. We explained that we were from New Zealand, not Australia, and in turn they said they were from Norway and Denmark, not Germany. They told us to refrain from feeding the monkeys as that just encouraged them to gather around and demand more.

The path was busy with porters racing up and down carrying people in the harnesses and other groups of walkers making their way around too. While passing a group of older women who were also walking down, they enquired where I was from.

“Women dou Xinxilan ren,” Five-foot said, which translated means we’re both New Zealanders.

“He’s from New Zealand,” they said in Chinese, pointing at me, “but where are you from?”

“I’m a New Zealander too,” Five-foot said.

“You can’t be, you look Chinese,” they said.

They then entered into a discussion about Five-foot’s family emigrating. He soon got very irritated by the questions as he tried to explain he was a New Zealander with Asian heritage but these women couldn’t believe, or understand, the concept of him being foreign. It indicated that not all people in China have got to grips with the wonder and joy that is emigration. Then again, plenty of Kiwis are still coming to grips with it themselves.

When the ladies said something about Five-foot’s mother, he stopped talking to them and raced ahead.

The sporadic monkey barking became much less sporadic and much more concentrated at around 1030AM. Mere metres from the path, an intimidating communal noise emanated from all around. The monkeys didn’t like us being around so were trying to scare us into going away. As they barked as one, its sounded like five hundred of the beasts were out there, but more likely there was only twenty. Every now and then, a bush would rustle only arms length from the path, which, coupled with the constant barking, freaked me out each time.

We caught up with a group of elderly women and young girls who were also descending the mountain.

“Let’s stick with them, ay?” I said to Five-foot, slightly out of breath due to increasing our speed in the previous twenty minutes.

“Yeah,” he said, “just so they feel a little safer.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, “I’m sure they’ll feel safer with us tagging along.”

Much like the top of Hua Shan, our descent was interrupted near a monastery not far from the bottom by thousands of people walking around, taking photos, eating at restaurants and lazing the day away. Very much like Hua Shan, it turned out there was a cable car running to this area from further down the mountain that tourists use then walk down to visit a special pagoda. Unfortunately, the pagoda was in the direction we were going.

Our progress was slowed down dramatically by high heels and dress shoes and by women walking in groups linking hands to form roadblocks. The wonderful photo opportunities halted everyone in their tracks, including those not photographing anything. The pagoda everyone came to see was a nice construction in what could once have been a quiet jungle, and it would’ve been an idyllic spot if not for the crowds screaming and shouting. We gave up taking photos as we jostled through the area filled with thousands of people. The aim now was to get out of this nature-walk version of a feeding frenzy.

As we followed the path down, Five-foot befriended a couple of monks, one of whom shook his hand.

“That’s really odd,” he said. “In south-east Asia, physical contact is forbidden for monks. Maybe it’s different here.”

After over an hour of filing out with the crowds, we got to the bottom of Emei Shan, but the path led through two kilometres of stalls trying to sell the usual crappy nick-nacks. The final stretch was a flat path passing through a valley alongside a picturesque river, with restaurants and touts lining the way of the roadside. The feeling from Xixiangchi earlier in the morning dissipated more with each step, having those fond memories of interesting nature tarnished by the road block that was the literally thousands of people we battled past and the shopping stalls all trying to sell us Chinese name stamps, postcards, figurines, and so on. To say it ruined the experience would be an understatement.

I accepted that I should take the good with the bad. The road to the top was comfortable and enjoyable due to the demand of the same crowds with whom we had to share the final hour of the walk. Without those people, I could’ve been cursing a rocky bus ride or perished in a fatal accident on the side of a cliff. Without them, maybe I would’ve had to walk all the way up and all the way down. The tourism at the mountain was a fact of life and without it the experience would’ve been very different.

When we left the mountain, we collected our bags from the hotel and headed for the bus station. I couldn’t think of anything to write on the restaurant wall that could sum up Emei Shan in a few words.

The karaoke tour bus to Leshan had music videos and lyrics scrolling along the screen above the windscreen inviting people to join in. The tour guide gave a running commentary via microphone all the way into the city, which I didn’t understand, but alas she failed to pass the microphone over to any passengers for their chance for a sing. Five-foot was obviously disappointed as he warmed up his voice repetitively.

Upon arrival in the city, we boarded a tricycle at the bus station and a man peddled us towards the riverside and a hotel of his choosing. He struggled away with our weight as he made the slow climb from the bus station under a hot, sweltering mid-afternoon sun while Five-foot and I willed him on and hoped our efforts on the mountain had lost us a few kilograms to ease his work. I was hoping we wouldn’t cause the guy to have a heart attack. To the relief of us all, the ascent flattened out and the tricycle reached a slight downhill towards the river. Once he got us to the hotel, I rewarded him with Y10, a payment he was more than happy to accept before he collapsed into one of the seats in the foyer. Once we had a room he would get a kickback from the hotel staff for facilitating our patronage.

Searching for breakfast, lunch and dinner rolled into one meal, Five-foot found a dumplings restaurant, a small grimy street-side establishment, and introduced me to the delicacy of pan-fried dumplings. The dumplings were fantastic although I was quickly filled up. We had both lost our appetites during the traverse.

Back at the hotel, I couldn’t find the room key that Five-foot had entrusted to me. Having searched all of my pockets and pouches three times each, I went back to the restaurant and crawled around on the greasy floor under the table we’d eaten at. I’d thought the place wasn’t particularly clean before but after sliding around in the slime and goo on the floor I wished I hadn’t dined there. Regardless, I returned to the hotel without the key, grime covering my knees and forearms, and had to pay for a new lock on the door.

After I had a shower, Five-foot and I were limping along the riverside with half the population of the three million strong city. Ballroom dancers took over public squares, as did people exercising with tai chi or playing badminton. Jumping into the brown water, men were swept downriver by the extremely potent current, then caught a rope at steps where they climbed back up to the footpath. They then ran back to the diving spot to jump in again. Running amongst the hundreds of people out for a stroll, all these men wore Speedos just like Qingdao and Beidaihe swimmers.

Up and down the country, it seemed that every man had to wear dick-togs when going for a very public swim. I can see myself being dragged into ballroom dancing and tai chi in public, but not wearing Speedos. If these men had six-pack abs and a rock hard ass, I could understand it, but they did not. They squeezed wobbly, stringy little bodies into these tight little elastic bands and didn’t reserve any thought for those who had to see it.

Across the river from the city, the Giant Buddha, the largest seated Buddha in the world, is carved into a cliff. The next day, we limped and hobbled our way around the Giant Buddha’s park, battling the crowds all scrambling towards the viewing platform at the riverside. The park is situated on a hill level with the Buddha’s forehead and as we walked down the steps to the viewing platform at river level, people pushed and shoved their way down callously with no consideration for each other’s safety. At over seventy metres high the zig-zagging path down was treacherous enough without the crowd’s impatience.

I was pretty irate by the time I got to the platform at the bottom due to the pushing and shoving. It was cool to look up from the toes of the massive Buddha but I wasn’t keen to stick around due to the crowd. Five-foot followed me as I walked off in a semi-huff, and we struggled back up the seventy metre climb to the top of the cliffs.

“We should’ve come here before Emei Shan,” Five-foot said between breaths, to which I grunted an out-of-breath agreement.

We caught a private boat back to the city that took us past the Buddha again for a great view from the river. It was magnificent from the river’s vantage point, as the driver turned into the current and revved the engine so the boat was stationary for a few moments. We took more photos of the Buddha and watched the crowds continue to push their way down to the platform until the driver spun us back downriver heading back to the city. I was beginning to calm down now we were away from the crowds and after a dumpling dinner I was a happy chap once again.

We visited a wangba in the city where people lined up to read my emails over my shoulder. Leshan didn’t seem to have many foreigners around so with someone proficient in English typing at a computer, people were drawn to have a read and see what they understood. I turned around and one woman smiled and continued reading. She wasn’t harming anyone, as I wasn’t giving up the secrets of cold fusion, so I kept writing about the place. She soon got bored and moved on.

We returned to Chengdu the following day in preparation for the next adventure, and the Karaoke bus tour guide again failed to allow anyone else a turn with the microphone. Five-foot was getting pretty irate.

Five-foot was happy with the hotel we’d stayed at previously so we returned there and got a room.

On the English news television channel, an item talked about the police of newly formed East Timor. They were in need of training and the Chinese government had offered to send some police to instruct in general policing strategy. There’s a couple in Chengdu, I thought, who’d be fantastic ambassadors to send.

And then the phone rang.

“No,” Five-foot said, and hung up. “Do we want a “health” massage?”