峨眉山 Éméishān, 四川 Sìchuān
27.7.2013
Arrived to Baoguo and Mt. Emei (Emeishan, shan means mountain) today. The trip from Chengdu to Baoguo went very smoothly. We got the second taxi from our hotel to the bus station and after buying the bus tickets (the clerk spoke English) we thought the bus leaves at seven pm (as written on the tickets), but it left immediately. There was a truck accident on the road, but we still reached Leshan city (near Mt. Emei) in good time. We were supposed to change the bus here to get to our hotel, but luckily two American tourists were on the bus with a local friend, who told us that the bus goes near to our hotel.
The hotel we chose to stay in is called Teddy Bear Hotel (玩具熊酒店 Wánjù xióng jiǔdiàn) and it's well known, even abroad. We didn't pick the hotel based on its name, but because they've received good reviews at Tripadvisor by backpackers. They speak English, do pick-ups from the bus station, serve food, have loads of information and free maps, etc. They were very helpful with everything. Our room was clean with a TV, aircon, own bathroom and a PINK mosquito net over the bed. I was amused of the thought, that Kari had to sleep in a Princess curtain bed. We also had a teddy bear, which is in every room. The room cost twenty euros, which was a bit too expensive and luxury for us on a long trip, but we aimed to save in another place then. China has actually become more expensive since our last visit and sightseing prices are among the highest in the world nowadays.
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| Teddy Bear Hotel lobby is covered with traveller messages |
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| Teddy Bear Hotel lobby |
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| Teddy Bear Hotel has bears in each room |
Near the hotel area is the Baoguo Temple and a waterfall (秀甲天下 Xiù jiǎ tiānxià) and restaurants, with local dishes including rabbits. A few rabbits were kept in small cages in front of the restaurants, all breathing stressfully and dealing with the hot temperature outside, which was 32 celcius degrees and at least 38 °C near the stoves. It was a sad sight. Finnish people eat rabbits too, but usually hunt those themselves and kill them immediately, which is better than keeping the animals in factories or in cages for a vague period of time.
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| Baoguo is one of the starting points for treks. Yingbin Square. |
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| Baoguo, Yingbin Square. |
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| Baoguo stone carvings of Samantabhadra |
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| Emeishan map |
28.7
GIANT BUDDHA OF LESHAN
Today we took the morning bus and headed to see the largest stone Buddha in the world, the Giant Buddha of Leshan (乐山大佛 lèshāndàfó), which lies 45 minutes away from Baoguo. From Leshan city we took a short taxi ride to the Buddha area. The ticket lines were crazy, everybody was pushing and queue jumping, so you had to stand your ground. The Chinese had a vacation, school kids too, so our timing wasn't the best, but Chinese often crowd places no matter the season. The ticket cost 90 ¥ in 2013.
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| It's crowded |
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| Map of Leshan Giant Buddha scenic area |
The 71 meter tall Buddha was carved out of cliff face during the Tang Dynasty (618–907AD) between 713 and 803 AD and faces Mt. Emei, with the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers mixing below its feet. Both Leshan Giant Buddha Scenic Area and Mt. Emei Scenic Area have been listed as UNESCO World Heritage Sites since 1996.
A rather grim story lies behind the construction of the Buddha; Chinese monk named Hai Tong led the construction which started in 713, hoping that the Buddha would calm the turbulent waters that plagued the shipping vessels on the river. When funding for the project was threatened, he is said to have gouged out his own eyes to show his piety and sincerity. After his death the construction was stuck due to insufficient funding. About 70 years later a jiedushi sponsored the project and the construction was completed by Hai Tong's disciples in 803. (Jiedushi were regional military governors in China during the Tang dynasty and the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period). Eventually the stones removed from the cliff to the river altered the currents, making the waters safe for ships.
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| Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers |
Located on both sides of the Buddha are staircases, the other one is for walking down to the feet of the Buddha and the other one for walking back up. When we reached the steps that lead down the place was swarming with Chinese. It took about 45 minutes to walk the stairs that normally would take about five minutes. While walking down you see the 71 meter Buddha from many angles and it is impressive. One of the features you first see is the head and coiled hair, which has 1,021 buns. The ears, each seven meters (about 23 feet) long, are made of wood and their surface decorated with mud. At the foot level you feel really small next to the giant toes, of which the smallest toe is about the size of a human.
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| Giant Buddha of Leshan from the top |
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| Stone carvings on the path down to the Buddha |
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| Staircase down to the Buddha |
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| Giant Buddha seen from below. The construction took 90 years to complete. |
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| Giant Buddha and its huge toes |
It is also possible to view the Buddha by boat, which stops in front of the statue. This way you also see the sculptures on both sides of the Buddha on the cliff. The river sometimes dries up and then it's possible to walk quite close to the statue from the shore. The current on the river was very strong at the time of our visit.
The area also has other sights, such as the 9th century Lingbao Pagoda, the Lingyun Temple and the Wuyou Temple (on another island), which contains two important statues: the 9th century Dashi bronze Buddha and the 11th century Amithabha statue group, cast in iron and gilded. The Mahao Crag has over 500 Han Dynasty tombs of the 1st to 4th centuries, notable for their fine carvings and calligraphic inscriptions. Outside, at the city of Emeishan, is the Dafo Temple, dating from the early Qing Dynasty. The Buddha area is quite large and requires at least a day to go through, so we decided to save our feet for the mountain climb the next day and only saw a few of the nearest sights.
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| Statue of Monk Hai Tong |
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| Main hall of Lingyun Temple |
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| Lingyun Temple |
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| Lingyun Temple |
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| Lingbao Pagoda |
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| Stone statue of Medicine Master Buddha on left |
BAOGUO TEMPLE AND FUHU MONASTERY
Back at the Baoguo village we still visited the Baoguo temple (built during the Ming Dynasty, 1368 to 1644), Fuhu monastery (Grouching Tiger monastery) and Shanjue Temple. Visiting them took about two and a half hours. The walk to the Fuhu monastery goes through a lush forest, where now was a dry riverbed. Someone had set up a restaurant on the riverbed, where people were relaxing and even sleeping. I guess they were certain that the river wouldn't flood at this time of the year, even though some parts of China were now suffering from bad floods.
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| Relaxing down at the riverbed |
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| Tiger Bath Bridge to Fuhu Monastery |
Fuhu monastery/temple (伏虎寺 Fú hǔ sì) is the best-kept secret on Mt. Emei. Due to inconvenient location deep in the forest and the fairly demanding trekking, it hasn't been visited often and is well-preserved and largely unspoiled. Vegetarian meals are served at the temple and it is polite to finish the plate. Some of the monasteries in the area also partly work as hotels and are peaceful places to stay.
The monastery was originally built during the Tang Dynasty (618 - 907), but the present temple buildings date back to 1651. It is the largest temple on the mountain. The main building is the Precious Hall of the Great Hero. The two other largest structures are the Yuchu Building and Huayan Pagoda Pavilion. Standing 5.8 meters high (19 feet), the copper pagoda was built during the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). Its eight angles are symmetric and the tower itself is carved with Buddhist scriptures from the Sutra of the Master of Healthiness. The tower was moved here from Baoguo Temple.
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| Fuhu Monastery, the first hall; Maitreya Temple |
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| Fuhu Monastery, the second hall |
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| Fuhu Monastery, the third and main hall with an insence burner in front |
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| Fuhu Monastery |
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| Fuhu Monastery. The fourth, Luohan Hall, houses golden statues. The hall is also known as Rohan/Lohan/Arhat hall. |
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| Fuhu Monastery, incarnation of Guanyin Buddha |
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| Luohan Hall is dedicated to 500 Arhats (a saintly person) |
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| Fuhu Monastery, Huayan pagoda |
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| Crossing a bridge on our way to the Baoguo Temple |
The Baoguo Temple (报国寺 Bàoguó sì) holds several significant religious artifacts; keys among them are a huge porcelain Buddha in the main hall and a 25 ton 3 meter high copper bell. In front of the temple gate is a pair of stone lions carved in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). There are four halls. Maitreya Hall is filled with colored clay figure of Buddha Maitreya. The main hall, Sakyamuni Hall, has delicate artifacts; the large golden Buddha Sakyamuni on his lotus-shaped throne, with figures of the eighteen disciples of the Buddha on the left and right wing-rooms. Hall of Seven Buddhas concentrates on the seven Buddhas, with the renowned Song Dynasty writer, calligrapher Huang Tingjian's "Hymns on Seven Buddhas" inscribed on four wooden plaques. Samantabhadra Hall houses Buddhist scriptures such as the valued painting works of Zheng Banqiao, Kang Youwei, Zhang Daqian, Xu Beihong and some other famous Chinese artists. A statue of Samantabhadra Riding on White Elephant, which lies on a bed of lotus flowers, is also inside.
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| Baoguo Temple |
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| Baoguo Temple |
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| Baoguo Temple |
29.9
GOLDEN SUMMIT OF MT. EMEI
At 3,099 metres (10,167 ft) Mt. Emei is the highest of the Four Sacred Buddhist Mountains of China and the place where Buddhism was born on the Yangtze valley. The mountain is considered a bodhimanda (a place where enlightenment is present) for the bodhisattva (a being that has reached enlightenment for wanting to help other living beings) named Samantabhadra. The first Buddhist temple in China was built here in the 1st century CE. The site has many Buddhist monasteries of the Ming and Qing period, most of them located near the mountain top. The top eight temples at Emeishan scenic area include: Baoguo Temple, Fuhu Temple, Qingyin Pavilion, Wannian temple, Hongchun Buddhist Convent, Xianfeng Temple, Xixiang Temple and Huazang Temple.
Mt. Emei is also a site of special significance to conservation and to science for its high floral diversity. Its biodiversity is exceptionally rich: some 3,200 plant species in 242 families have been recorded, of which 31 are under national protection and more than 100 species are endemic. This is due to its transitional location at the edge of the Sichuan basin and the eastern Himalayan highlands. Within its elevation range of 2,600 m are a great variety of vegetation zones including subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest, mixed evergreen and deciduous broad-leaved forest, mixed broad-leaved and conifer forests, and subalpine conifer forest. This exceptional flora is also rich in animal species with some 2,300 species recorded, including several threatened at a global scale.
For such an amazing place we sadly didn't have enough time to trek its many beautiful routes with many temples, caves, monasteries, pools and scenic spots. The routes would take days and even one route from Baoguo to the summit would be over thirty kilometers long. The routes aren't what you might imagine, there's only stairs and you don't need hiking boots at all! We still started our day early, at 5:30 am. We wanted to get going before the weather turned too hot and we would have enough time to climb what we had planned. Going up Mt. Emei cost about thirty euros. The price depends on the time of the visit and which routes and vehicles you are taking, and some of the temples have their own entrance fees. We took the 1,5 hour bus drive to the Leidongping bus station, where we still had to climb to the Golden Summit (金顶 Jīndǐng) for two hours. The same walk back took an hour and a half. A cable car can take you a bit further, but it wasn't working now, and besides, we would've walked anyway.
From Leidongping station the path is just stairs for two hours, but it's better than a slippery, muddy natural path, which it could turn into at these subtropical altitudes. We were climbing between the altitudes of 2,430 and 3,077 meters and it was heavy for both breathing and muscles. Everyone walking up was taking it slowly and having breaks. This reminded us of our climb to Mt. Kinabalu in Borneo (Malaysian side), which is a heavier climb to 4,100 meters. Little did we know that after Borneo and China we were going to climb even higher.
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| View while trekking up Emeishan |
It started raining during our bus ride and it rained a bit while hiking up. A heavy fog surrounded us most of the time, so we couldn't admire any possible scenery. The Tibetan macaque monkeys have taken over a small area on the path. Because some tourists have treated them badly it is adviced to take a walking stick with you in case they attack and want to steal your belongings. Our hotel offered us those, but we decided to go without them. Some tourists were feeding the monkeys, which seemed pretty aggressive. We passed them quickly, knowing how unpredictable they can be.
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| Tibetan macaque, probably planning to steal something |
Close to the summit a wider staircase appeared, with elephants lined on both sides leading us to the top and the statue of Samantabhadra (a bodhisattva known from the Mahayana Sutra literature). At 48 meters high the stupa (also known as Puxian Stupa) is the 22nd tallest statue in the world. Its unique head faces ten directions, one for each of the Bodhisattva’s "Ten Truths of Universal Worthiness", with elephants below its feet. The impressive stupa is surrounded by urns containing the ashes of Buddhists. On one side the bodhisattva holds a ruyi (object serving as a ceremonial sceptre in Chinese Buddhism or a talisman symbolizing power and good fortune in Chinese folklore), while on the other his hands form the Dhyana Mudra meditation gesture. Inside the stupa is a statue of Maitreya.
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| Cloudy and rainy at the top |
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| Statue of Samantabhadra |
Behind the statue are three magnificent palaces. The copper Huazang Temple (华藏寺 Huá cáng sì) was constructed during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and was restored in the 1970's to its original condition. The Grand Hall of the Great Sage or Mahavira Hall (大雄宝殿 Dàxióng Bǎodiàn) is the main hall, housing statues of the Gautama Buddha and two disciples. The golden Puxian Hall (普贤殿 Pǔxián diàn), built in 1615, is located behind the main hall at the highest point, and is over 8 metres (26 ft) tall. The Silver Hall (Woyun Monastery, 银殿 Yín diàn) lies aside seperately.
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| Huazang Temple area, below; The Grand Hall of the Great Sage |
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| Puxian Hall (Golden Temple) |
Wanfo Peak is the highest peak on Mt. Emei, at 3,099 meters. Between this and the Golden Summit is the Qianfo Peak, at 3,045 meters. All of these peaks have something to see, but the Golden Summit is the most popular one with the golden Samantabhadra statue. Mt. Emei has plenty to see and seing everything involves at least three days of climbing. The route we would've wanted to trek is 19 km one way and back the same way. Mt. Emei also has a ski resort.
The fog and rain had now gotten even heavier, so the visibility was down to just a few meters. We unfortunately couldn't get any good pictures. Walking around the summit area can take about an hour and a half, but being cold and wet with no place to warm yourself in we only walked around for half an hour. Due to the heavy fog we couldn't witness how the clouds usually stay below the summit, fading everything around the summit and creating a surreal sea of clouds atmosphere. Another thing to marvel here is the sunrise, but the busses arrive to the top too late for that. If you want to see the sunrise you can stay at two hotels at the summit.
We took the bus back down to our hotel, where we had dinner. My dinner wasn't so good, but Kari liked his vegetarian version of mapo-tofu with eggplant (a Sichuan dish). We hadn't eaten too well again, although we'd been hiking a lot and used a lot of energy at the top of the mountain freezing in the cold. Mostly we'd been eating snacks and drinking juices. The next morning we were continuing our journey again by bus. Our Emei-adventure wasn't exactly what we had hoped for, but mother nature is unpredictable and you can't fight weathers.
