ethnic tourism

It seemed like a good idea at the time: hiking 70 kilometres down a mountain.

It was after five o’clock-rather late for new arrivals-and I was the only visitor aboard the cable car. Slowly the car bobbed and swayed its way out of the station and into space, suspended between a cliff face and an awesome chasm.

A few minutes later I stepped out onto a treeless plateau. I had made it, more or less, to the summit of Emei Shan, one of China’s four Buddhist holy mountains, situated in Sichuan province.

Along with about 90 per cent of all those who visit Emei Shan I had cheated horribly in scaling its dizzy 3000 metres heights. But the hike up is a fairly major undertaking. The 2600 metres climb from the base to the summit at Wanfoding (Ten Thousand Buddhas Peak), 3099 metres above sea level, is a tortuous trail of near vertical columns of uneven stone steps.

I had bused up the alternative drivable road for the simple reason that I intended to hike down, itself a 70km slog, and I felt that was quite enough.

The cable car had deposited me at the lower edge of Jinding, the lowest of Emei Shari s three peaks, but the one hosting all the tourist facilities. The summit was quite busy with sightseers, clambering over the temple and taking photos of each other in front of the void.

A little beyond the temple and standing on its own little bluff, virtually the highest building on the summit, stood a meteorological station complete with its own guesthouse, a simple white wooden building. This looked like a good place to stay for the night. I was led to a truly minute room, but it was clean, tidy and, despite the absence of any heating, remarkably warm.

When I emerged onto the summit next morning in the pre-sunrise light, even my down jacket was barely able to keep the cold from my bones. Already quite a crowd was gathering on the terrace to watch the sunrise, and before long the cable car began disgorging hundreds more.

But with far too much cloud to the east to allow more than a token glimpse of the rising sun, I drifted away and turned my attention westwards. In that direction the view was clearer, the mountains that form the first outriders of the Tibetan Plateau glowing pink and orange in ‘the low sunlight.

An hour or so later, with the sun well up, it was time to begin the long descent. Unfortunately, all those hundreds who had come to see the sunrise had the same idea. The path down towards Leidong Ping was steep and twisting, and the stone staircase in an appalling state of repair.

It was incredibly crowded, with everything that could move on two feet. Groups of cocky young men, carelessly pushing past everyone, young women fashionably but inappropriately dressed in high-heeled shoes, ancients heading for immortality but hobbling along on walking sticks, undisciplined and hyperactive children, mixed in with the occasional huagan, a simple, light bamboo sedan chair for those unable or unwilling to walk.

Mercifully, this stretch was relatively short-lived. At Leidong Ping the crowd vapourised into an army of buses, jeeps and cars, leaving me virtually alone with the beautiful mountain and its coniferous and rhododendron forest.

At last, down within the forest, I had the real beauty of Emei Shan all around me. The mountain’s holy status has ensured it has remained cloaked with almost unmolested forest. Emei Shan is said to be home to 3000 species of plant and animal, 100 of them unique to the mountain.

Initially, the path meandered gently among rocky outcrops buried in dense forest ablaze with white rhododendron flowers. But, quite suddenly, after passing between two gateway like boulders, it emerged onto a ledge high above a precipitous drop. From here the path started dropping fast and became a steep stone staircase snaking forever downwards.

The path plunged down past White Cloud and Mahayana Temples, finally coming to a precarious perch at the Elephant Bathing Pool, site of a tumbledown temple.

This area is famous for monkeys-Tibetan macaques, a rather large monkey with thick reddish brown fur-that hang around the path terrorising hikers into handing over food. They left me alone. Showing a stern face and glaring straight at them was all I needed to ensure even the biggest male stayed in the trees beside the path.

From the Elephant Bathing Pool the path twisted and turned its way downward, a steady though fairly scattered flow of people moving in both directions, a few taking their ease in huagan hauled by sweating porters.

A little lower down, at Lotus Rock, the path split, the main route plunging on straight down the front of the mountain, and a less used, more circuitous path that promised to pass through remoter, denser forest. I opted for this latter route, and from here on it really did seem at times as though I had the mountain to myself.

For the next few hours the path dropped precipitously, from 1900 metres where it split off from the main route, down to 1120 metres and the site of Hongchunping Temple, my destination for the night. Rich forest greens enveloped me the whole way, towering evergreen oaks above and a lush undergrowth of ferns and herbs below.

At times the steps were so steep and twisting I was sure the monks who had built them would happily have installed a spiral staircase had it been possible to do so with stone against a cliff. Very few people were using this route, and I felt sorry for the few labouring, sweating hikers who passed me on their way up. Things were bad enough going down, and before long my legs were seizing up with an agonising cramp.

The last three hours of walking were a painful hobble, and it was well after dusk by the time I reached the temple. I heaved a huge sigh of relief, and as I crossed the threshold into the courtyard the soft glow of oil lamps and low murmur of voices gave me a gentle welcome.

The old monk I stumbled across in the gloom was very surprised to see someone arriving so late, but he was kindly and helpful, leading me across the courtyard to my room on a balcony with a view across the temple. A big, colourful room with enormously high ceiling and doors to match, with beds draped in mosquito nets. Never was a bed more welcome.

The next morning I could hardly move my legs. I loafed around the temple for some time, trying to shake some life into them, before finally renewing my descent. It soon became clear that the worst was over, however, and within a few hours I had arrived at Qingyinke, Clear Sound Pavilion.

A few kilometres below was the car park and waiting minibuses. But I was determined to walk the whole way to the mountain path’s official starting point at Baoguo Temple so I pressed on. It was clear that few people bother these days with this part of the hike, for the last few kilometres entailed cutting across terraced paddy fields, the path balanced precariously on the terrace edges; a slip one way would put me into water, the other down a sheer two-metre drop.

It seemed a long time before I finally hobbled past Baoguo Temple, with its attendant cluster of minibuses whose drivers harangued me to board and come with them up the mountain, and finally into the quiet, leafy grounds of Hongzhushan Hotel and a room where I could rest my aching body.

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