No, I didn't go to the Great
Wall or Shanghai or the Forbidden City - all highly avoidable places
during China's National week. But I still traveled in China and ever
since arriving in this country I had been advised to travel OUTSIDE of
China for the holiday.
Now I know why.
China has two "Golden Weeks."
One is during the Chinese New Year in February and one is during the
National Day Holiday the first week in October. During this time, about
2/3rds of China's population is on the move. This year I was right
there with them...at
the airport, the tourist attractions, the bus stations...
I chose to use my vacation to
visit China's southwestern province of Sichuan. Known for it's spicy
food and the icon of China - the pandas. My thoughts were "I really
want to see pandas and it's not Beijing or Shanghai so how bad can it
be?" In all honesty,
my travels weren't bad at all but I can definitely see why people don't
recommend traveling during this time. But knowing I was going to brave
the hoards of people I packed a little extra patience for the road.
That said, next Golden week I'll be heading outside of China's
borders...
My
trip began in Chengdu with a visit to the Sichuan Opera on my first
night. I have not a clue what was said during the performance but it
proved to be very entertaining anyways! Sichuan Opera is known for their fire-breathing and face-changing acts - you should check out this link:
Sichuan Opera Face Changing
The
next morning, I woke early and headed to the bus station for the first bus out to Leshan. A couple of hours from Chengdu, Leshan is home to the world's largest Buddha - appropriately known as Giant Buddha!
View from the boat first!
Not a picture of the Buddha (obviously) but of the staircase carved into the side of the cliff.
Oh hey Buddha!
Taken while on the stairs to foot of the Buddha but I think this picture does a good job of showing just how huge he really is!
And this is just a bridge I liked :)
That same
evening, I boarded another bus to continue onward to Baoguo at the foot
of Emeishan. Emeishan is one of China's four holy Buddhist mountains. My hostel in Chengdu had arranged my hostel in Baoguo for me and scribbled the name and address in Chinese characters for me on a scrap piece of paper and told me to just show it to a cab driver when I got there. I'm more of an official booking and confirmation number kinda girl but I went with it. I did ask the lady at my hostel in Chengdu to at least write the name in pinyin (spelling of Chinese characters with the alphabet as we know it) so that I could at least know how to pronounce the place I would be looking for. I arrived in Baoguo, scrap piece of paper in hand, said goodbye to the 3 other foreigners I met on the bus, and then attempted to hail a cab. The first guy told me no and pointed in the opposite direction so I crossed the road and got a cab from that side. This guy drives about one car length, rolls down the window, and asks a passerby where my hostel is, offering my scrap piece of paper for the person to read. Words are exchanged, the cab driver takes the slip of paper back, drives another 3 car lengths turns left and there in front of us on the right hand side sits my hostel. But how was I suppose to know?! We laughed, I tried to pay him for taking me all of 1 block but he refused, I gathered my things and headed into my hostel that was about a 3 minute walk from the bus station.
My dinner in Baoguo - the lady seemed very confused when I told her that no I did not want any rice...
Aside from being one of China's four holy Buddhist mountains, Emeishan is also a great leg workout and a place to make friends (or enemies)
with monkeys. I was up early the next morning and off to find the monkeys! I greatly underestimated exactly how long it would take
to summit this 3000 meter high mountain. And I also wasn't super prepared with
the right clothing. At the base of the mountain it was around 50-60
degrees and by the time I reached the top it was spitting rain with a temperature right around freezing. Did I mention I set a world record for scaling this mountain
in the shortest amount of time? I first took a bus as far as you can up the mountain. I thought the bus would take an hour or so. It took two. Then, it was about 7.5 km of stairs to reach the summit. The entire time I was slightly
stressed wondering if I would ever actually make it to the top before
having to turn around and sprint back to catch the bus back
to the bottom, and then another bus back to Chengdu (no vacancy
at my hostel in Baoguo for another night - thanks to the Golden week
crowds). I know it holds great significance for Buddhists and it was
definitely impressive (wish I could have had more time to enjoy it!) but my personal favorite part was of course the
monkeys. I had read about the "terrifying" and "aggressive" monkeys that "scare the hell out of" people prior to visiting Emeishan but I wasn't deterred by these comments - I wanted to see the monkeys! The whole way up to the top my eyes were peeled for what I was sure would be my new best monkey friends but I reached the top, out of breath, in a hurry, freezing my butt off but sweating to death inside my coat, and a little bit sad that I had not found any Emeishan monkeys. I took my pictures at the top, where after about 2 hours of straight stairs, I only stayed for about 25 minutes due to my time constraints, grabbed a sausage on a stick from a food vendor and started the trip back to the bottom. I had nearly made it back to the buses when the little boy walking in front of me had his juice box ripped from his hands by a monkey that was bigger than he was and he burst into tears. This poor, little boy was very sad and
then there was me right next to him incredibly excited to finally meet the Emeishan monkey
clan! If you don't have food and you stand back then these monkeys
aren't going to bother you. If you have food, well, they are going to
make damn sure they take it away from you. And if you don't have food
but do feel like being friendly with them then they will be friendly
with you too (and by that I mean climb all over you and attempt to unzip
your bags to see if you've hidden your food from them). Anyways, the monkeys were absolutely hands down my favorite
part. You can see it in the pictures. I wasn't afraid of them, maybe I should have been. I was wishing
that I had an extra hour to spend with them...I was quite a sight - a
foreigner letting all the monkeys sit on her head.
This lady and her family were on the same bus as me going up the mountain. We had a little bit of a conversation as much as we were able to and she asked if we could have a picture when we got off the bus. So here we are and the little girl is a perfect example of a spoiled child pouting and throwing a fit because she is being made to do something that she didn't want to do. I know there are bratty children everywhere in the world but China sure does have a lot of them...thought it was a good example of what I see a lot of at school... Mom and Dad, if I ever acted this way (and I'm sure I did), I'm sorry!
"Please keep calm if you are caught by a monkey for food" -Monkey Zone Management
(I saw no such "management" while I was there)
The right way to go up the mountain. You could pay these guys to carry you in a hammock like chair!
My first glimpse at the Golden Summit!
3,000 meters up! Golden Summit, Emeishan
So cold and windy at the top! About to start my race back towards the bottom and the monkeys!
True love! Ha not really...look closely he is trying to unzip a pocket on the strap of my bag!
Then there was this guy! A little too chunky to be perched on my shoulder/head but he didn't think so! He wasn't exactly gentle with that hand he has on my head, he was kind of pulling my hair, I can see why some people would panic!
And this one looking way more innocent than he probably was but he didn't sit on my head anyways!
That's all for now! Part 2 coming soon!
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