For the three days when I was walking in the Emei Shan, was keep thinking how can I describe my feelings about this experience. What could be the appropriate words?
Well, I was angry for several reasons. There was not enough information, in fact, there was none, about this mountain even though I paid 150 CNY (25 USD) to just hike. No brochure, no map, no guide, nothing. Also, all the information from every source was different. Hiking time; 15 hours – 10 hours – 7 hours, didn’t know trust which one. So we just wrote down all the places we could stay: monasteries and started walking.
I’ll keep it short. The first went pretty smooth, we only hiked about 7 hours. The second day, after 13 hours of hiking in the rain, we were about to froze to death at the top of 3,099m Buddhist mountain. The every source said we could stay at the nunnery at the top, but they looked at us like ‘what in the world are you talking about?‘. We found a place to stay with a help from the nunnery and bought the most expensive bed we’ve ever got.
It was the most difficult hike, and all the surrounding reasons didn’t make it easier. I was angry that we didn’t plan it well because of the lack of information, I was angry that I was so tired because of, again, the lack of the information. And because we were walking in the cloud, everything was wet and slippery.
Well, but the glorious moment came at last. The view was amazing at the top. No doubt. It was amazing. The Golden Summit with the blue sky, all the surrounding mountains afar, and the clouds. Also, the views along the way almost looked like a Chinese painting. Probably a lot of artists came here to pain, I guess.
It was difficult and memorable, but personally, I don’t want to go back again.