Mounting the beauty under heaven
"A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving" (Lao Tzu)
On good friday 1986 we arrive at the station of Emei, in Sichuan. The reason of fame of this at the time ugly, dirty town is nearby 3077 m Emei Shan, one of the sacred mountains of Chinese Buddhism. From the 2. century on the mountain was adorned with monasteries. In the 15th century there were more than one hundred. The same people who had destroyed monasteries and Buddhist statues in the cultural revolution under Mao were in 1986 cutting wood, carrying bricks to rebuild monasteries and remodel Buddha statues for the expected invasion of tourists. The mountain rises 2600 m above the plain where the town is and we wanted to climb it. Again (see number 19), there is a detailed description of the adventures of these days in the travel diary which i have kept.
"Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." (Lao Tzu)
The local crowd passing souvenir shops
From the Pavillion the path turns into a staircase. That is even more exhausting, especially for the upper legs. All the material for the reconstruction of the temples had to be carried up. Some of the people climbing up carry heavy loads, either in a tray on the back or balanced on the ends of a wooden stick on their shoulder. I try to lift the load of bricks of one man…. but I would not have been able to carry it more than a few steps. Some offer to carry our backbags or even us up the mountain. Some of the locals are indeed carried up that way. We decline.
"An ant on the move does more than a dozing ox" (Lao Tzu)
After another 7 km and 400 m of climbing, at 12.40 we reach the beautiful Hongchun temple. We take a break and watch some monks on a stone bench leafing through old books in the sun. There are courtyards with Zen gardens and exotic plants. Again, only the crowds of noisy locals disturb the peace.
You cannot open a book without learning something" (Confucius)
From here it is 15 km and 700 height meters more to the Xianfeng temple at 1732 m. There are few hikers left who go uphill, but crowds of people walk down. They shout chinese encouragements at us, which we answer by cursing in german. The route up the stairs is steep and exhausting, but spectacular. The path follows a gorge and crosses numerous little bridges. After 33 km we finally reach the Xianfeng temple, our destination for today.
"Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished"(Lao Tzu)
"Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power" (Lao Tzu)
Monks drying their books
Then we proceed to the pilgrims‘dining hall. Above a hole in the wall is a chalk board with the menu. I take it from the hook and put my head into the hole to look for somebody to order. On the other side of the hole is a smoky and greasy kitchen. Somebody in a cooks’ apron aims with chopsticks at some rats scurrying around on the ground. I order everything on the menu twice. It turns out to be pork, egg-soup and pancakes. The food is good. And since the dining hall is so dark, we can only hear the pets….
"He who knows does not speak. He who speaks, does not know" (Lao Tzu)
The diary is full of complaints about the chinese visitors. They come in bigger groups and are rowdy and loud. In contrast to us westerners, the chinese like to be in company. A place is only good for them when they have lots of people to share it with. In this temple one guy gets out a bottle of booze and then the party starts. We would have preferred a quiet temple. We get a lot of pints in the hope to be able to sleep through the noise.
"He who talks more is sooner exhausted" (Lao Tzu)
The toilets in the Xianfeng temple
Surprisingly there is electrical light in the temple all night. That is good when you have to go to the toilet. This location can be attained via a kind of wobbly wooden bridge. At the end wooden cubicles with a hole in the ground hover above the abyss. Below the shit of 600 years of Buddhism slowly slides down the flank of the mountain. But not everybody was able to aim right into the hole. My nightmare is to loose my glasses….
At night it has rained. Fortunately we had a room on the ground floor, because the roof was leaking and the beds upstairs got wet. So without breakfast we continue our hike up the sodden stairway. In addition it is cold.
"Wherever you go, go with all ;your heart" (Confucius)
Eventually we meet the famous Emei Shan monkeys. The monkeys are known to be notorious thieves and we tightly hold on to our gear. Indeed we pass a number of plundered, empty handbags and their former contents. At a point the path is plastered with banknotes. A triumphant monkey up in a tree swings another empty bag. We collect as much of the money as we can easily get and continue. Later we meet a beggar and give him what we found. He is dumbfounded.
"Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt" (Lao Tzu)
The day is foggy and gets increasingly colder. At least there is no rain. But the path gets so icy that we buy crampons from a vendor along the way. Above 2100 m there even is a lot of snow. From time to time we have a noodle soup in wretched shelters along the path. It gives some warmth. The path must be spectacular at clear weather. To the left an abyss disappears in the fog. To the right a forest of bamboo. Muffled sounds seem to come from far away.
"If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as a teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself" (Confucius)
Summit temple in the mist
The top of the mountain can also be reached on a basic road. There are busses. Therefore there is a huge, bleak and dark temple at the top. There are several buildings with dormitories and bedrooms for hundreds of visitors, but tonight only a few huddle together around a stove in the only heated room. On each bed we find one of the typical chinese down winter jackets. We gratefully wear it.
Also here, dinner is good. But it is accompanied by the smacking, sneezing, snorting and spitting sounds of the chinese guests. In China, if you don‘t make noises while you eat they think you don‘t like the food.
The night is cold even though I wear all my clothes and have brought my sleeping bag good for -10 C. Getting to sleep again is difficult. All the noise easily penetrates the thin walls. At least there is enough light to read. After we finally fall asleep we wake up from rattling and knocking on the door. We think somebody has got the room wrong in the maze of buildings, but it turns out that we share our room with a chinese girl. She comes late but like all the other chinese visitors gets up before dawn to see the famous sunrise.
Shops and food stalls on the way to the summit
The rumour goes that the sun rises on Emei shan in the center of a perfectly round rainbow. Pilgrims had been so overwhelmed that they jumped into the rainbow and ended up in the abyss. Nobody had to jump that day. Nobody had to get up early either. There was no sun and no rainbow.
"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated" (Confucius)
The icy landscape at the summit
The way down we took the bus.
„Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it“ (Lao Tzu)
Confucius lived from 551 – 479 BC. His philosophy defined rules for personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice, kindness, and sincerity. „He is widely considered as one of the most important and influential individuals in human history. His teaching and philosophy greatly impacted people around the world and remain influential today“ (Wikipedia)
„A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves“ (Lao Tzu)
Although it was thought that Lao Tzu was a contemporary of Confucius, it is not sure that he is more than a legendary figure. If he really existed, it was after Confucius, in the 4th century BC. If you read the advice of these men, which was well known for such a long time, you are tempted to ask why their easily understandable and correct words are not followed by the leaders of the world.
„There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is imitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest“ (Confucius)
Noodle soup for lunch
