The mountain of enlightenment. With 76 Buddhist temples and 3099 meters high, Mount Emei is one of the four sacred mountains in China, a World Heritage Site UNESCO since 1996.
We are in the Sichuan, in the heart of China, two and a half hours by bus from Chengdu, the nearest city. The first temple was built in the first century, when a group of monks settled on the top of the mountain and began to spread the Buddhist religion in the region. Over the centuries the temples, the Pagoda and the gardens multiplied, until the mountain was transformed into a spiritual path of ascent to the golden peak above the clouds.
The tourists here are almost all Chinese. It is not easy to find information on the travel times of the paths and the distances between the temples. They give us one at the tourist office map in Chinese and they explain to us in broken English that it is best to go up to the top by bus and then walk down, as most visitors do. But we don't like the idea, we want attempt the climb on foot, so in the morning we begin the task of climbing up to the summit.
We start from an altitude of 1000 meters. In front of us one infinite staircase of narrow and steep steps immersed in an immense forest of evergreen trees half hidden by the fog. It takes us an hour to get to the first temple, step by step, sweating the impossible. We are almost the only ones to climb the path, there is absolute peace and tranquility, immersed in a mysterious atmosphere for the fog and for the thousand sounds that come from wood. We meet the monks, the nice and cunning baboons, many swarms of white butterflies that are lost against the white sky for the clouds; and finally the "pony express”Of the mountain, little Chinese with strong shoulders and steel legs who go up and down thousands of steps every day with huge baskets on their backs to supply the inhabitants of the temples with food and materials.
After seven hours of steps we arrive at the bus yard before the summit, from which, exhausted, we go up with the cable car for the last leg of the climb, the golden peak. Sitting in the cabin, drenched in sweat, we understand why it was worth it: suddenly the sky opens into a deep blue, the sun shines high and, below us, a sea of ​​clouds hides the world, the woods and everyone. the steps we climbed. Is one wonderful show, the right reward for the fatigue of the day.
A few hundred more steps and we arrive as high as we can not, the golden peak, crowned by a monumental golden statue of Buddha and spectacular temples. We are enchanted to admire the landscape, the sky, the peaks of the mountains that peek out from the moving clouds. Then running down the steps for an hour, running so as not to miss the last bus that goes down to the valley before the darkness makes the wood and its millenary temples impenetrable.
