A Busy Night, and a Relaxing Afternoon

Tea was at a small cafe called the Hard Wok Cafe, the only place to eat basically. I had pork noodle soup, and asked for some chilli in. That may have been a mistake: I didn't have too much, but it was hot! We also had a beer, and at this point Nathan stumbled down the 100 odd steps from the monastery. He had already been drinking with some monk friends of his (are they even allowed to do that?!), and he was kinda drunk.

Do they sell tshirts I wonder?

He went to see the cafe owner and came back with some homebrewed fire water with goji berry and dried date in. We could try for free, and of all the fire water we've had, this was the nicest. We got some more, and got some for Nathan too, and spent the evening learning the implications of different pronunciations of "thank you" in Chinese, and recording videos of our efforts. Nathan even showed off his Drunken Fist kung fu (captured on film). The fire water was strong stuff!

Nathan was trying to explain about the medicinal effects of goji berry and ginseng, but he wasn't succeeding too well because he was drunk. Not to worry though, the 3 Israeli people we'd said hi to on the next table were all Chinese medicine doctors, who were here to learn under a genius Chinese doctor in Chengdu, and they explained all about it. Del, who asked about the ginseng, should not take it, because he sweats a lot and has a rosy complexion, meaning he is yang (heat) aspected, and ginseng is the most powerful yang herb so it would only make things worse. Who knew!

Doesn't look dangerous at all...

We climbed back to the monastery a little unsteadily (especially in Nathan's case), and went to bed quite early; the monks would be waking at 5am to chant so a peaceful night's rest was unlikely. In fact though it wasn't too bad. The gong wasn't exactly welcome, but the chanting was really atmospheric. I listened to it for a while before it lulled me back to sleep. We were allowed to go and watch, but since there's only a few of them, I didn't want to go and put them off by gawping!

Breakfast was back at the Hard Wok, banana and honey pancakes with Nescafé that was sitting on the table as if free, but turned out to be 20 yuan (£2.25) a cup! We only had one a piece thankfully. Nathan just had tea, but was already there before we arrived, and seemed none the worse for wear.

Walking back down the same trail was super quick, and hour and a half if that! It was spitting a bit, and early (we had breakfast at 7:30), so the paths were deserted, which was really nice. The paths were a little slick though; Alfredo fell on the first step after the cafe and hit his back on a bench. He was ok, but it was a good warning to be careful.

A few different looks from the way back. The clouds shrouding the mountains added a little something.

Del found a stick to complete his Sun Wukong collection. He got zero funny looks walking about like that. Honest...

At the bottom we had to wait a little while for the bus to set off, but no big deal. We had a little look round and then just enjoyed a nice sit down for 10 minutes or so before it was time for the bus to depart. It was probably even less than the half an hour estimate we were given before we were back to our original monastery.

What's he praying for?

Del looks like he's about to drop the sickest album of 2017. If you don't understand this, Vicky will, ask her

We had moved rooms as some thieves had stolen our original ones! Not to worry though, all the rooms are of a similar standard, and after moving our luggage, there was a chance to visit Crouching Tiger monastery, a half hour walk away. Simon and Chris had already been earlier in the day and said it was worth it, so we took their advice and went.

The scenery was a bit more bambooy than higher up. Still very nice though!

The Crouching Tiger temple is the largest in the area. It is actually a nunnery, not a monastery, all the monks are female. Not that we saw any, it was lunchtime. The usual suspects were all in evidence (fat Buddha, the kings of the 4 directions (sword, umbrella, guitar, and snake guys), guardian Buddha (sideways sword. Means... something), Samantabhadra (with 6 tusked elephant, which looked particularly judgemental), but also there is a special hall, the hall of 500 arhats. Those of you who read my Vietnam blog may recall that Arhats are a type of Buddhist, lower than a Boddhisatva (e.g. Samantabhadra), sort of like disciples. Well this hall had statues of 500 of them! You pick a random place to start, and count your age clockwise to get "your" Arhat, and then you could buy a card with a sort of fortune on it. I listened to Mike and Pat's though, and either William's translation was poor, or they were rubbish fortunes, so I didn't get one. My guy looked silly anyway!

Fat Buddha looks particular divine here. All those desires he ate probably

Looks familiar... but different

I made a friend!

A pride of lions this time, none hungry

A wish tree (a silver osmanthus). Alfredo later made one for success in his MBA

The clouds were still lurking

Totally my image. Yup, definitely my illegal picture of the hall of 500 arhats..

After walking back, I grabbed 2 steamed buns from a stall, and went to eat my emergency noodles I was getting tired of carrying for lunch. There was no group lunch, and I missed my fix of buns this morning! There was time for a little rest (aka naptime and blog writing) before a visit to some hot springs in the afternoon, something I was looking forward to to ease my tired muscles.

Another excellent caterpillar on the way back from the monastery. There are nice butterflies here too, but you ever try and photograph one? It's impossible unless there's like a thousand!

The hot springs was about 10 minutes walk away, everything in Emei is close it seems! The changing rooms were super modern, and Simon and I (the only men who went) walked out into... Disneyland meets water. Plastic flowers and bees everywhere, a lazy river type pool (though no current) with a few kids splashing about, and the water didn't seem particularly hot. Things were looking bad! 

Luckily this was just a kids area though, there was a set of pools descending down a hillside, with the one at the top being warmest, and the one at the bottom coolest. The surroundings were well done, and there was a lovely view. Stepping into the hottest pool I was disappointed. It was hot, but was it hotspring hot? The second step I realised that all the nerves in my first leg had been destroyed by the heat. It was hot! The second pool was like a warm bath, the third like a warm bath with a bit of cold water in, and the bottom one was like that lake in Moscow the Russians cut holes in the ice of and swim in in winter! There were a few other pools kicking about, but they appeared to be closed for off season, disappointingly.

Christine and Julia had come too, and we met them briefly, but they wandered off somewhere soon, leaving Simon and I to our own devices. We opted to psych ourselves up, go in the hottest pool until we felt we were losing consciousness, then work our way down (only once to the bottom pool, that was enough!) then back up again, psyching ourselves up in the second hottest pool for a while before going back to the top, then back down and etc. 

After a good while, the girls resurfaced. They had found some whacky coloured medicinal pools, and had been trying those out this whole time. Simon and I tested a lime green, purple, and red one before calling it a day.

I 100% got in a helicopter and took this photo of the hotsprings. Yup, no copyright infringements here...

On the way back Julia had already gone, and Simon and Christine stopped for tea, leaving me to my own devices. I got a delicious banana milk iced lolly, and headed back to the monastery. As I reached the gates, 2 girls in matching shirts rushed over to me, and asked me something in Chinese. I did not understand, so shrugged blankly. After some general confusion, it turned out they wanted hugs and photos, and their whole class noticed and rushed over! It was like being in Indonesia again, except nobody started pulling my clothes thankfully.

Spot the white guy

After I escaped the crowd, I ate some snacks I had piled up in place of dinner: it had only been a couple of hours since my lunchtime noodles. After that there was a chance to have a massage. I had had one before in Vietnam, but I had horrendous back sunburn (Belle had suggested the oil might help ease the sunburn, it did not), so I didn't really get to know if I like them, so I thought I'd give it a go. As it turns out, I did like it... aside from when she did my shins, which was extremely painful! I must have tight shins or something...

Back at the hotel, there was plenty of time to read and such; a luxurious start of 9am was planned tomorrow, as we are to spend the day travelling to Chengdu (it's not too far), and stopping at Leshan to see the world's biggest stone Buddha!