Magnificent Mount Emei

Sichuan’s geography varies depending on the area you’re in. In the eastern part of the province, you’ll find agriculture. In the west, there are beautiful mountains. For our final day in Sichuan, we headed south-west.

Mount Emei is located just west of the Leshan Buddha. You can take the high-speed train there. Book your ticket to Emei Shan, and then either hop on a bus, or hire a car to get to the next part of the mountain.

Unlike the rest of our trip so far, this activity wasn’t about learning or museums. This activity was purely scenic. Even from the parking lot, Mount Emei is stunning!

We decided to go about 1/3 of the way up the mountain, mostly because we didn’t want want to spend 5 hours in a car to get all the way to the top of this very high mountain. Maybe if we’d had more time we would have traveled to the summit, but even 1000m gave us a gorgeous view!
We chose to go as far as Wannian Temple. The peak itself is above the clouds. We both want to come back and go all the way to the summit on our next trip to Sichuan.

Once more, my leg stopped us from doing any hiking (hiking in China is just climbing stairs, which is especially hard for my leg), but the up side is that we took the cable car up and down the mountain and got quite the view!

A 10 minute ride up the mountain and we didn’t even have to share the car!
It was hot in the cable car, and I was happy I had my fan with me

At the end of the cable car, we took a little walk and enjoyed the clean air and beautiful scenery. It wasn’t long before we came across a beautiful area.

This wasn’t quite a temple. It was more like a place where people could write wishes or prayers and hang them.
There was writing on every piece of wood.

After following a lovely, green path, we found the temple we were seeking. Wannian might just be the nicest temple I’ve seen in China!

The stairs going up to the temple
One of the many beautiful Buddha’s there
So much colour!!
Beauty everywhere!!

The grounds were immaculately maintained by the monks that live there full time. Everything was pristine!

Beautiful trees everywhere. The whole area is so clean!!
I just loved all the colors!!!
Beautiful!
Everywhere you turned, there was something beautiful to see!

Eventually, we made our way back down the mountain, and on the way, the sun finally came back out again!!

Blue skies!!!
Beautiful sights on the way down!
Can’t get tired of this scenery!!!

After making it back down this part of the mountain, we took a shuttle bus to Baoguo temple for some more sites, and some dinner (we booked a late train back). Baoguo has a little town, as well as the temple, and there was plenty to see there.

Carvings into rock
Gorgeously carved murals
A lovely bell tower

We got there too late for the museum, but we had a half hour to see the temple before it closed. I’m really glad we did too, because this temple was also incredibly beautiful!!

And this time we had blue skies adding to the color!
We were a bit rushed but managed to get some photos
Temples are all about gardening!
Prayer candles. One thing every religion seems to have in common, is the ceremonial value of candles.

We enjoyed hot pot for our final dinner in Sichuan, and then the following night, we were off to Kunming, Yunnan!!

More on that later!

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