January 17: Monkey Thieves

We woke up this morning at 8 and left by 9. I didn't want to leave my bed. It was so comfortable.

Where we stayed

The bathroom at the monastery we stayed at was a whole in the ground and overlooked the mountain across the way. Great view. Ha ha. But seriously.

Yesterday my cramp ons kept coming off so I asked the lady if she could help me put them on correctly. She did and it made so much sense. Tie it through the laces... Duh! She also offered us breakfast, which looked and smelled amazing and looking back we totally should have had breakfast. But we had no idea how long today would take. Once we hit the snow yesterday we knew we were going to be in it all today.

View from the bathroom

Hiking up stairs in the snow is one thing. Hiking down stairs in a mixture of snow and ice is another... It was pretty frightening.

We were told from the monastery we stayed at to the Elephant Bathing Pool would take us 2 hours. Would we see elephants bathing?!? Or was that just the name of the monastery? It was just the name. No elephants to be found.

Steps down the next morning

What was to be found you may wonder?  MONKEYS. MEAN MONKEYS. I HATE MONKEYS. Want to know why? I got attacked! Henry and I stopped at the landing of a set of stairs to take a picture and I turn around and a HUGE monkey is crawling the handrail. I whispered to Henry and we both moved back. I hid behind him and next thing I know... A monkey jumps on my pack and pulls it off my back. I jump and sprint up the stairs screaming. Henry sort of stands there in shock and then backs up the steps. The monkey unzips my bag, digs through everything, takes everything out and rips through all my Ziploc bags. I think I was closest to crying when he had my kindle in his hands. Henry said he was most worried about my passport. Of course I hadn't even thought of that. Then, out of nowhere a couple is walking up the stairs. They have poles with them and the guy tries to get the monkey off my bag. He gets the monkey off my bag and onto the rail by throwing a piece of candy. At that point Henry has run back down the stairs and is packing my bag back up. I'm watching him do this, making sure he doesn't leave anything behind when all of the sudden the monkey is next to me starring at me. I almost burst out in tears. I thought I was going to die. These monkeys are MEAN. And we were warned. But yesterday we saw no monkeys so we thought we were good and that they didn't come out in the winter.

Monkey with my backpack

So Henry has my bag packed, he runs back up and we all quickly go up the stairs and go into the elephant bathing pool monastery. This couple ended up being great and we hiked with them the rest of the way. Henry and I also bought bamboo sticks in case any more monkeys decided to attack.

Around 1 I started to hear music and I got so excited. We had to be close to the cable cars. Music of celebration for getting to the top. Then I realized sound traveled far on the mountain. But then I heard busses! Busses! Civilization! We are close!!!! And then the monkeys came back. As a group of four we all held our sticks out and quickly walked by them. And then, we hit lunch spots!! And the busses! All so exciting! Something I had 99% doubt in being able to do... I had done it!

We said bye and I said a million thank yous to the nice couple we had met and then we got lunch before heading to the top by cable car.

Made it to the top!

Lunch was great, as always. Not only have I learned to tolerate spicy food, I've learned to eat chicken on a bone. This isn't like a chicken wing or anything you may have in America. It's meat around a bone and it sucks to eat. The end.

After lunch we headed up to the cable car. Sounds simple but there was a ton of snow and... More damn monkeys. I hate monkeys so much now.

The top of Emeishan is called the golden summit. And that it was.  It was absolutely gorgeous and I'll let the pictures explain the rest.

We were going to stay at the top tonight and wake up to see the sunrise but being that we were in the clouds and the weather wasn't great neither of us thought we would see the sunrise.

Golden Summit

Oh also at the top we ran into a lot of people we met in the beginning of our journey! It was pretty cool.

We took the cable car back down around 4. On the way down we both bought souvenirs. I bought a bracelet that I won't ever take off. I completed Emeishan! I did something I thought was impossible. I had the most incredible experience on this two-day hike. I have memories and stories that I will never forget.

fried potatoes!

And the last story to tell you about this adventure... The set of stairs going down to the bus station was a sheet of ice so most people were going to the next set of stairs and just walking back. Well 10 monkeys were around us and they were all staring at us so I decided to slide down these stairs on my butt and I screamed. And everyone starred at me. But hey, I didn't get attacked by another stupid monkey thief! And it was fun! Great way to end the adventure.

I don't think I stopped smiling on the bus ride back to the Teddy Bear hostel. I was so happy and proud of myself. And I was so grateful that I had the opportunity to have this experience.

That night we ate a ton and drank beer. It was great. If you've never had fried rice with peanuts, bacon ad egg, you should. It's delicious! We also had fried potatoes, which were super salty and made my night. I was in heaven.

Tomorrow we have a down day and take the train to Kunming at 4:40pm and arrive at 10:40am the following day. 17 hours!