Foodsicles and Stairmaster Deluxe

Whew. That's all I can say today. We are in a town called Baoguo where there is a famous mountain called Emai Shan. This mountain is very famous in China and covered in monasteries and temples. You can climb the mountain up and then come down with stone steps conveniently provided. After reading the missives from previous travellers posted on bedsheets tacked to the wall at the Teddy Bear Inn where we are staying, we opted to take the bus (2 hours plus) up the mountain (cause we didn't think we could make it up, and boy, were we right) and then climb down to a monastery and stay the night. It was very foggy and drizzly on the winding, grinding bus ride up and we both started to get sleepy from the altitude (3309 metres up) and then when we got to the top we took a cable car to the summit which was a complete waste of money as the mountain was absolutely shrouded in mist. Ok, so let's walk down.

OMYGOD. I am typing this the day after and debating whether I need knee or hip replacements first. Ivan and I are gibbling about as though our legs are made of rubber. It just kept going down and then up to go down again and for God's sake, as you all know, neither one of us is young and springy anymore. 5 hours passed on teeny stone steps, going sideways sometimes on slimy, wet stones and there were Chinese folks among us who were wobbling about like rubber chickens too. In fact, you can take a porter down who will carry you on a palanquin - fit sherpa guys (always one tall and one short - you can figure that one out) who make less than a buck hauling folks down from eminent collapse. Proud to say that though we were close, did not have to employ the boys although it was just in time when we reached the most famous monastery - Wannian- where the temple is amazing but the food lady is formidable. I ordered things pointing to the menu and then was very miffed when we ended up with aquatic soup, fried cabbage and rice when I really wanted pork and bamboo shoots only to find out that I was pointing below instead of above and so it goes.

Our room was, of course, up 3 flights of stairs. The lady taking us up actually held my arm to get me up there as though she thought I would collapse on her, close, but no. Our room would have had an amazing view had we not been enshrouded with cloud and rain but they did have - HOT WATER AND ELECTRIC BLANKETS - bliss and nirvana at the monastery. sigh.

This morning we lay in bed with electric comfort as we could hear the throngs of pilgrims below visited the monastery until the power went out and then we quickly dressed and made our way to THE CABLE CAR, neither one of us in any shape to walk the 5 plus hours to the bottom and took a bus back to the hotel. There is no shame in this, as, if we are to go any further on this trip, knees will be required.

As for foodsicles, I have to relate the story of the night before we left Leshan. The musician buddies that we met invited us for dinner, as you will recall from my last blog, and we showed up after Buddha viewing at the music store. We were met there by an assortment of musicians and an english speaking friend, Tina is her English name which she was not pleased to hear, is short for Christina, and then wanted to change her name to Telly until I told her that was short for television and decided to stay with Tina. That aside, we took a taxi to a Chinese restaurant for genuine hotpot. After we were seated on kindergarten chairs (they like short chairs here) and the tea was poured and beer ordered, Tina asked me to come with her. She led me to a shelf of a gazillion sticks with a variety of bizarre looking meats and such on them and told me to choose something as she grabbed a half a gazillion sticks to take back to our table. I thought I might be safe with beef. It was a very fun dinner, with cauldrons of oil and hot spices in front of us we put the sticks containing, as we were to learn, many intestinal goodies and duck's tongues and wee eggs and God knows what into the oil and sent up copious toasts with the beer, a good time was had by all.

Afterwards, the musicians asked, shyly, if we would like to go to their jam room which, they said, was in a very dark place. We said, oh yeah. Then I rode on the back of one of the buddy's motorbikes, and Ivan walked with the other guys to an old factory site which was, dark. It was great. They had drums and a whole bunch of cool equipment, which they probably spent all their money on and they rocked out for us. Ivan played with them for a while and they played their tunes for us and it was a rockin' night. They then escorted us to a taxi and it was a very unique experience in China for to meet locals and hang with them is unusual and it was all due to the fact that music is the universal language.

We are on our way this aft, if our legs will carry us to the bus, back to Chengdu and then we hope to fly to another place and another bus ride to a countryside town. bye for now and hey, if you are reading this, send a post or an email, it's such a lift to get email from y'all.