Continuing on from our jam packed day of Panda's and giant buddha, it was time to head to our first monastery (Bao Guo) on Mount Emei. The guide told us that Emei stands for E "Female" Mei "Eyebrow" , yes Mount Emei is translated as Female eyebrow mountain!! As we were to discover this wasn't the only thing that didn't translate very well, check out the photo of our favourite sign so far, there are many more where this one came from. (Believe you me there is nothing fresh about toilets in China, not even the 6* ones!!).

The Monestary wasn't as bad as we had first thought. The shower was ok we were sporting PJ's and Poncho's (it was raining) which we don't really think is suitable attire to walk around a monestary in but the silent monk who we made unlock the showers didn't seem to mind. He even texted his mate to find out where the key was, it seems that 21st century silent monks are able to use texting as "silent" communication!

Day 2 after being woken at 4.30 am but what sounded like millions of crazed monks banging on their gongs we started our journey to the top of the mountain, including 1200 steps to finish the trek to get to our next monestary. Not great timing as Sharon's reaction to bites made her ankle swell to the size of her head! she soldiered on as luckily we have a couple of nurses in our tour group that bandaged her up on the bus, (see photo). On the way to the top we encountered monkeys in the mist, we were given walking sticks to protect ourselves but our tour guide reverted to finding massive rocks just in case they got angry!! this didn't help our nerves when we saw the size of the monkeys but did increase our speed through monkey infested areas. The top of the mountain looked like what Carrie imagines Heaven to be like (not that she's particularly religious!) we could have been swimming in the clouds, it was rather spectacular. Our next monastery at the top, came complete with electric blankets which we thought was a luxury, but alas just a requirement to dry out and warm up the cold damp beds! The toilets were introduced to us as the "room with a view" which we assumed was due to the fact that we were on top of the mountain and were expecting vast mountain views, however on entering we discovered it was more about the fact that the monks could see in...(the photo with green mould in it!).

After surviving our night at the top of the mountain, we then had to walk back down (rather pointless part of the trip, we feel!) we found that when the monkeys are hungry in the morning they are not quite so friendly but this managed to wake us all up and we were quite alert from then on. To reward our efforts over the last few days we then checked in to a luxury spa complex with loads of out door hot springs. The talking point of the spa yet again featured Robin who tried out the fish tank treatment (where the fish nibble off your dead skin) when he finished he then jumped in to a boiling hot pool and realised he killed of one of the unsuspecting fish who was hiding in his shorts, poor thing.. (the fish not Robin!). After resting our weary bodies again it was time for food so we headed to the street market to see what we could find. What we found was that you could select your food alive in cages (fish, chickens, rabbits, frogs, turtles...) and even watch it being killed and cooked. We opted for the safe option of dumplings and soya sauce.

Monastery and mountains. Done. (Photo's to be updated shortly)