Happy Easter everyone; We're back!

Sorry for the delay since the last post but we had mountains to climb and monkeys to defend our biscuits against! It's been a truly epic last few days since we left for Mt Emei and we've seen some unbelievable sights on the way.

We started on Tuesday morning at about 8:30 while it was raining at the bottom of the mountain. The walk began in much the same way as it continued for the next two days, steep steps and more steep steps! We'd been set a rough itinerary by the hostel owner who'd done the walk quite a few times before so we headed for a monastery about half way up the mountain which would be our "accommodation" for the first night. The walk was pretty tough going to say the least! Think we counted approximately 12 million steps before we stopped counting. The scenery was absolutely stunning. It was almost like a tropical rainforest, just a bit colder. The water was pretty cold too apparently; Jules misjudged a stepping stone while we were attempting to cross a stream and went in upto his ankles!

We saw quite a few monkeys on the first day but these were all in a bit of a touristy area where people could just get a bus to so we didn't stick around to look at them for long, seemed a bit too artificial really.

Ten zillion steps later and it was fast-approaching nightfall when we finally reached the monastery. We were shown to our dormatory,regretably not by a monk, although me & Dave did bump into one who gave us a nod and a passing prayer which was nice. The room was far from habitable to say the least! It smelt like the inside of a plant-pot, it was freeezing cold and the bedding was mostly damp! At least the food was good, although by that point i would have happilly eaten one of Jules' wet insoles i was so tired and hungry.

We entertained ourslves in the room with games of eye-spy in the dark and shaddow puppets. I was half hoping we might see an apperition of a monk appear at the window but no such luck.

Day two and we got up and out of the room as fast as we could! Much the same as the first day we climbed steps none-stop for the next 8 hours, "relentless" is about the only way it could be decscribed; only this time the steps were also covered in snow and ice too! There were a few signs on the way warning us to pass quickly as landslides are very common. There would have been more of these signs but most of them had been destroyed by falling trees and giant boulders.

At one point we were nearly hit by a handful of stones which we soon found out had been thrown by one of the resident monkeys (Tibettan Macaques) which were also trying to steal our food. Some of them had pretty impressive teeth but they soon backed off when you threatened them with a big stick!

About 6pm and we finally reached the top...3077 meters up! had a quick look round for the most expensive hotel we could find and spent most of the rest of the evening showering and eating giant pot noodles. (no idea why the hotel wasnt serving food, so we had to buy the noodles from a nearby souvenier shop!)

6am on day three and i dragged everyone out of bed to see the sunrise. it was freezing when we stepped outside and pitch black but fortunately the cloud that had been lingering around the top of the mountain had dropped far below us leaving a perfectly clear stary sky above and a sea of white a thousand feet below.

I've put a couple of pictures of the sunrise in the latest album but no photograph could really do it justice... possibly one of the most awe-inspiring things i've ever seen. I could get really deep here but i'm seriously hungover still and might cause myself to bring up my breakfast so i'll let the pictures do the talking.

That's about all for now, i've just noticed i'm well over my internet time and we've got a flight to Shanghai to catch soon

If you don't hear from us before, have a great Easter weekend and we'll be back bloggin' as soon as we can

love x x x x x