Unfortunately during the night there was a storm with high winds that caused loose doors to slam all over the temple so our sleep was less than satisfactory during the night. We revived ourselves in the shower and prepared for a big day ahead. We had a couple of cookies and resolved to hit the trail hard for a couple of hours before stopping for a proper breakfast. the trail immediately after the temple was steep and tough and we'd definitely made the right decision to stop when we did the night before. After 2 hours we came to a small restaurant run by a couple of middle aged chaps who seemed overjoyed that we'd stopped at their establishment, the high season was definitely over and any business was very welcome! Once again the food was simple but very tasty and plentiful and we bolted down great quantities to aid us on our way. We set off invigorated and crossed the now flatter ground quickly, so quickly in fact that we came round a corner to spy the bottom of the cable car really not too far ahead merely an hour later, something we hadn't expected to see until considerably later. The sight was a little bit of an anticlimax, the scenery hadn't been as spectacular as Hua Shan and reaching the final stratch so easily robbed us a little of our sense of achievement as well.

Thankfully, just after a coach park where most of the Chinese tourists are bussed up to so that their pilgrimages aren't too strenuous we ran into a troop of Macaque monkeys. The monkeys cheered us up no end, especially with two daring raids on the plastic bags of the tourists too stupid to be on their guard against the wild animals. The monkeys ran to relative safety by the precipitous drop with their plunder of soft drink bottles and chocolate bars. Within the troop there was a whole range of ages, with some mischievous youngsters playfighting frighteningly close to the edge of the cliff alongside a grumpy old stager, watching over the troop and making it clear with a number of hoots and hollers that he didn't want anyone to stand close to him for pictures!

We carried on to the summit and were suitably impressed with an enormous golden (in colour, not actual gold) statue of a ten-headed goddess watching over all angles of the Mountain and its surrounds. The view was impressive in the glimpses we got between mist coverings and we wandered around for quite a while admiring the different views. Due to our swift ascent, however, we had a lot of time to kill. We'd planned to stay on the summit so our arrival at 3.30 meant we had at least 3-3 1/2 hours of light left and very little to do. We checked into the only open hotel on the summit which was really rather luxurious with a flat-screen tv and free tea-making facilities and spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the summit and buying nick-knacks from the souvenir shops. As the sun fell we ate dinner in the restaurant and retired to bed to watch a bit of tv (the Chinese show 'Just Go' is hilarious if you ever get the chance to watch it!) before succumbing to an early night's sleep ready for the sunrise in the morning.