25. From the Golden Peak to the Golden Monkeys of Mt. Emei

So, we are now at the peak of Mt. Emei.

For centuries, devout Buddhists have paid pilgrimage by trekking up the thousands of steps it takes to get up the mountain. The temples were initially developed, interestingly enough, about the same time as when the early Christians were starting to spread the gospels, at around 25-220 AD. Some said that having completed a pilgrimage up the mountain is already a major spiritual reward, not including the health benefits of the walk.

But for us mere tourists, we are supposed to enjoy the four famous view: The Sunrise, The Cloud Sea, the Buddhist Light, and the Saint Lamp. Each view is to be seen at a different time of the day, morning, day light, late in the afternoon, and at night, respectively. In this afternoon, we did see the sea of clouds rushing up the mountain side, slowly engulfing the silver Palace.

A few steps upward, we reached the Golden Palace, Jinding. which is now clothed in sheets of modern golden cladding. It is not clear what the real purpose of this building is all about, but it's architecture, though quite standard, also seem quite exquisite and clean.

But what was more interesting is actually behind these large temples. For there was quite a lot of construction still going on. Since the peak is at such a high altitude, the question that always arises is how do they move all the construction material up the mountain when there are no roads. The romantic answer is shown by this next photo: all material were borne on the backs of laborers. But in reality, I also saw some hoisting cables at the back but still, the last few steps were on human backs.



If you look at the picture closely, you would see that these two are standing still with their load resting on poles. What we learned was that these bearers would take up a load, walk up the flight of stairs and would always stop completely still for a few minutes to catch their breath, and then resume the way up. This of course gave us tourists a perfect picture taking opportunity!

Apparently, this is what they do every day, day in day out, for $30RMB (~$4USD) a day. That's quite a way to make a living! I suppose they are physically very fit and perhaps also spiritually satisfied for doing a religious deed.




On our walk down the mountain, we were repeatedly warned about the ZhangNie monkeys that roam the peak area. The sign here said that too. But, alas, right after I took this picture, this monkey jumped me, wanting to take away a white plastic bag that I was carrying that contained a local delicacy. I am happy to report that, thank you very much, this monkey business did not harm me nor frightened me. Indeed, I was quite pleasantly surprised by all the attention!




Mt. Emei was the last stop in our tour. We went back to Chengdu, had a great dinner, and flew back to Guangzhou the next day.

24. A Blue Road to the Golden Peak of Mount Emei

What, a blue road? You must be kidding! Just wait a minut or take a sneak peek below.

But first, after that very interesting giant buddha in LeShan in the afternoon, the bus took us west to the HongZhuShan Hotel just inside the Mount Emei (pronounced Er-May) Scenic Area. HongZhuShan used to be Generalisimo Chang-Kai-Shek's residence in the early 1930s. Since then it has been re-decorated into a very nice, quiet hotel nestled among trees and mountain sides. When we opened our room windows, we could see terraces of tea bushes grown right outside and one can taste the humidity.

An interesting modern feature in the hotel is that the corridor lights both turn on and off automatically by sensing whether there is motion in the hallways. This is a nice energy saving idea that I think also pleases hotel guests. The hotel's dining room, the Madarin Cafe, is known as one of the finest in the area. On this day, we had a real fine Szechuan dinner there but I can't really say it was spectacular.

Early next morning, we started our climb up Mt. Emei. Mount Emei is not only famous for its sceneic beauty, but when we were young, we used to read in kung-fu novels about the (usually pretty) swordswomen who are nuns and supposedly practice their swordsmenship on the mountain. No, we didn't see any, not in this twenty-first century date anyway. The entire area is of course dotted with many temples and pavilions. May be there are nuns there had we visited them.

There are several ways to climb Mt. Emei. Our tour guides were very thoughtful and arranged for us to take the easiset way up - by bus, then by cable car, ending with just a slight walk up a few stairs to the peak.



Oh yes, I did not forget the blue road. Because the drive up the mountain is through narrow lanes and is almost always foggy any time of the day, only local designated drivers are allowed to drive the tourist buses. To remind them of the fact that they are entering a 'drive-with-caution' zone, the first kilometer of the road up is painted blue. Presumably the blue color would alert the driver. We were impressed and wondered if this idea can be applied elsewhere.



The cable car was a fun ride through the clouds and mists. When one emerged at over 3000 meters (~10,000 feet) in elevation, the air was crisp and thin. Each step seems harder to walk now.

But everyone went oooh and aaah when we came to this panorama at the mountain top. It is a giant four-faced Buddha!








click to enlarge

21. Nine Villages in Two Gullies - Jiuzhaigou

Whereas Zhangjiajie provided the heavenly joy of seeing the natural beauty of mountains that soar into the clouds, Jiuzhaigou let us earthly folks revel in the natural beauty of water as gravity guides it lower.

The name "Jiu 九(nine) Zhai 寨(village)" says that there are nine villages originally in this area. They are the settlements of the native Chinese minority tribes of Zhang (Tibetan) and Jiang people. The word "gou 沟" literally means a gully, i.e., that part of a mountain valley that has water running through it. Where the water is slowed, large pools of water are formed. Normally, we would call such fresh water bodies lakes. But since the Zhang/Jiang people are so far from seeing a real ocean, they can only dream of seas. So, every lake in the Jiuzhaigou area is named a "Hai = sea". The entire area is a y-shaped gully that starts at an elevation of 1990 meters, rising to the top 'Hai = sea', the Long Sea, at 3150 meters. The park entrance is at the north end, the tail of the 'Y'. Today, we went up the east branch.

As we stayed at the new Sheraton Inn, we can almost walk to the park entrance. Along the path, we can already see a rushing stream of pure and cold water. Our tour group was ushered into the Guest Building and they took a photo of the group. This photo is then printed onto our entrance ticket. Ah! Digital technology is indeed ubiquitous. But as we shall see, this scenic park is right up there in adopting modern measure to keep the park in great shape environmentally.

Because by late October, the peak summer season is already over, large tour buses and personal vehicles are no longer allowed inside the park. Instead, the park only allows a fleet of 25-passenger mini-buses to be ran and they would follow a group and turn off the engine when not needed. The interesting thing is that these are not really 25-passenger buses but what Americans would normally call 9-passenger minivans. Now you figure out how to fit 25 people into a 9-passenger minivan, and I have not even counted the driver and 2 tour guides!

So, what do you see in Juizhaigou? Nothing other than blue skies and even bluer lakes, eh, I mean, seas. As we walked up (or down) beside the gully, the place is dotted with large and small waterfalls. The most spectacular, for the first day, is the Nuorilang Falls (诺日朗瀑布) which is supposedly the widest highland fall in the world. While it is no challenge to Niagara Falls in size, the fact that foot paths have been laid so one can get real close to it made it a wonderful experience.


Click to enlarge

There are of course, plenty of websites that document the beauty of Juizaigou, e.g., in English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiuzhaigou_Valley (this one explains everything) and, in Chinese: http://www.cpanet.cn/zxyz/yuan-j/index.htm (great professional photos). But the photo posted here is mine, slightly digitally enhanced.






For those whose major activity during a tour is shopping, Jiuzhaigou does not disappoint either.
What I can't understand is that every one of these stalls is selling the same Tibetan handicraft. Now, how do you decide which stall to buy from is a mystery to me. One nice tip though; you can buy a very nice and very real-leather cowboy hat for $15-20 RMB (less than $3 USD) depending on your bargaining skills!





As we rode the environmentally-correct buses up the gully, the air gets thinner, the temperature drops, your ears pop, and the scenery gets even better. When we got to the Long Lake, everyone thought that it looks just as nice as Lake Louise in Banff, Canada. But to me, this is better, this is a place discovered for years and still remained pristine.




But that is only half of the Y branches of Jiuzhaigou.

20. Flying Into Yellow Dragon - Huanglong

After that event-filled day in Chengdu, we were scheduled to fly into JiuZhaigou first thing the next morning. We all woke up at 5am for the bus ride to the Chengdu Shuangliu Airport which is 16km out of town. But once we checked in, we found that our flight has been indefinitely delayed due to the snowy conditions in the JiuZhai-Huanglong Airport.

So we waited in the hot airport. Since I am dying for a cup of java, I tried the airport cafeteria. Incredibly, the only coffee I can order form the greasy dog-eared menu is a RMB $45 (US$6) coffee served in a paper cup! The girl there assured me though that it is indeed freshly-ground coffee they specifically prepared for me. Wow!

But the Sichuan Airline was quite nice. First they provided free breakfast, then later, they shipped everyone to the airport hotel and gave us individual rooms. We were also provided with a free lunch at the airport hotel. Our tour guide made a high-level decision and decided that we should be provided with better food in another 5-star hotel. So we went there but we had to rush back when the airline resumed the flight in the early afternoon.

Now, we are flying into an airport that is about 3500 meters (~11,000 feet)in elevation, comparable to Pike's Peak's 14,000 feet elevation. The view from the air was spectacular, see the photo I took close to our landing.



You have to understand that this so-called airport is really just one single straight pavement laid down in the mountains. The plane landed just like a fighter jet landing onto a carrier. It had to brake immediately and then had to do a 180 degree turn-around at the end of the runway so as to be able to taxi back to the terminal.

All of us were worried; not about the plane but about our ability to survive in such high elevation! Well, first I felt the chill immediately, then I felt a little dizziness because of the low level of oxygen in the air. But this dizziness passed quite quickly once we got into the tour bus. The air, though thin, is squeakly clean and the sky is a luscious blue. How nice.

The airport is known as the JiuZhai-Huanglong because it is situated equally far from both Jiuzhaigou (九寨沟 = Nine villages Gully) and Huanglong (黄龙 = Yellow Dragon). Both are UNESCO world heritage scenic areas in the north-west corner of Sichuan Province.



The bus wound through beautiful mountain roads and we saw, in a distance, spectacular snow-packed peaks basking in the late afternoon sun. Huanglong is famous for its calcite deposits that flowed down in colorful pools:



There is also a colorful waterfall. But really, Huanglong is just the appetizer of what comes next. The bus had to wound through the mountain roads to get to our next destination - JiuZhaigou. It went down roads that are named as 1 to 19 hair-pin turns before we got to sleep in our hotel late at night.

19. Pretty Puppets and Ugly Faces

Our first day in Chengdu ended on a big bang - many bangs on flowery drums in a variety show at the Shu Feng Ya Yun 蜀风雅韵 Tea House. Literally, "Shu Feng" means the airs of the province of West Shu, ie., Sichuan and "Ya Yun" means artistic tunes. The tea house is in the center of town inside the Chengdu Culture Park and our tour bus driver had to maneuver through very narrow streets to get there. We all thought we were going to hit something but amazingly, at the end, the bus emerged among dense groves to a tiny parking lot and we were surprised that it was filled with large tour buses.

Since it is a tea house, everyone was served a cup of tea on a bamboo shelf right in front of the seat and a bowl of water melon seeds to nibble on. Although the place was 90% filled with tourists, there was only one to two groups of non-Chinese tourists. So, this is still an un-discovered gem known only to Chinese travelers!

Even though it was only a one and a half-hour show, the program was excellent and consisting of a Sichuan opera, a comedy show, musical instrument solos, a marionette show and a hand shadow show. But what every one came to see was the famous "Sichuan Changing Faces" show.

First, the stick puppet show:



The stick puppet was hand manipulated by one single person and in this Sichuan version, one can see every movement of the puppeteer and yet it does not distract from the performance of the puppet. Apparently, this is an ancient art that has been touted as having been around for two thousand years. The puppet was simply beautiful as the story told was about a fairy who descended from heaven and fell in love with the beauty of our world.


Next, the world famous face change show. For those who has never heard of the art of face changing, this is quite an incomprehensible act somewhere between magic and dance - the actor first put on a colorful mask on his face and perform dances. Then, in the middle of a movement, in an instant, his face color changes to a different face mask with a totally different color. The very skilled performer can change the face so smoothly and fast that the audience can only ooh and ah and wonder how it can be done. In this show, the actors went through 5-6 faces (I lost count while enjoying the art). I think the world record was something like 15 changes. If you want to search on google, here are the two Chinese words to copy and paste: 变脸. Amazingly interesting!

18. Generals and Poets

Our Chengdu tour started with the archaeological sites I mentioned before, then a 'hot' lunch (in the Sichuan sense), and in the afternoon, we visited two shrines, one dedicated to a well-known ancient general and the other to a famous Tang dynasty poet.



The first is a shrine to Wuhou, 武侯祠 (http://www.wuhouci.net.cn/). Wuhou is more popularly known as Zhugeliang 诸葛亮, a prime minister of the kingdom of Shu during the Three Kingdoms period. This temple is built about 200 years after Christ, so we are talking about the time of the Roman empire. Walking through it does give me a feeling of history.

If you are wondering why there is a shrine just for Zhugeliang? I believe it is because Zhugeliang has always been considered one of the geniuses in Chinese history. He was not only smart, resourceful, with wide knowledge of both the literature and military strategies, but also he was known for his dedication. He served the king faithfully till his death just because the king took pains to recruit him. The photo shows his image in the shrine.


In the shrine, there are a series of figures of all the well-known generals that I had read about in my youth. But I'll show you a not-so-well-known one: General Liaohua. There is a Chinese saying that is often quoted: 蜀中无大将，廖化当先锋. (Roughly translated: there are no great generals in Shu so we ended up having to have Liaohua be the leader.) This saying is used in modern day to describe how companies that are so short of talent that they'll draft any one to be a leader. Alas, whether Liaohua was a great general or not of course is debatable and our tour guide, you can see his hand there, insisted that he was unfairly treated by history. C'est la vie!


杜甫草堂 (Dufu's Grass Hut)
Tang dynasty is well-known for its great poets and the 300 Tang Poems, a collection of poems from the period is often found in many Chinese family libraries. Dufu is a prolific and well-regarded poet who happened to live in Sichuan and so they have dedicated this shrine to him. What's interesting is that this place is called simply Dufu's Grass Hut - but it has very nice ponds and rows of bamboos. Ah, the serenity of the place, especially since it was raining when we visited, soothed me.

17. Up on a Tree and Down in the Ground

We flew into Chengdu at night and checked into the Kempinski in the center of the city. The Kempinski is a 5-star hotel but incredibly they turned off the air-conditioning for maintenance for a whole week and the day we arrived, it was hot, humid and no air-conditioning! The first night was therefore, shall we say, a sweaty sultry Sichuan night. Even though the air-conditioning came back next day. I must say we did not find the Kempinski as appealing even though it features some very modern room furnishings.

But this sad start in Chengdu is more than compensated by our agenda the next day. Our new tour guide, a very sincere young man, took us to five wonderful places. I'll start with just two for now: a panda bear reserve and an archeological dig that unearthed vases that seem to have come out of a Mayan (i.e., Mexican) site!



Our first stop was the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding. It is here that the first successful artificially-augmented conception and breeding of giant pandas occurred. This is a world-renowned institute that also allows tourists to both see, and on occasion, to touch and post with the pandas.



On this day, no posing with pandas were allowed but we did catch a few pandas up on a tree. At the time, we also saw six pubs in the nursery. They are about the size of a small dog. It has been rumored that a pair of them has been promised to replace the aging pair in a Hong Kong Park.



Our next stop is the archaeological site known as SanXingDui, literally "Three Star Mound", which is about 45km outside of Chengdu. From this photo, you can see the amount of funding that has been spent to make this into a monumental museum. But I thought that the designer of the museum seems to have forgotten that the figures from the dig should be the star rather than his/her architectural design. For details, see: http://www.china.org.cn/e-sanxingdui/jingtai/6.htm


I took only a few not very good photos. This one shows a major find, a bronze human head that is hollow inside. What struck me was how the features shown do not seem to me to be Chinese but more like Mayan. I think I'll want to do some more research on this interesting site that unearthed no written records.

And that was just for the first morning in Chengdu.