The little local town had some fantastic looking stone carvings and a beautiful waterfall, but again Alex burst the bubble by explaining that the stone carvings were about 5 years old and that the waterfall was fake.
The temple is at the foot of Mount Emei, the largest of the four sacred Buddhist Mountains. We could see very little of the mountain as the entire area was covered in low cloud and things were rather dreary looking, but we got up at 6:30 and took the first bus up to the top carpark. A 30 minute climb up the path to the cablecar was very picturesque in a 'swamp of despair' (Neverending Story) kind of way, and even having gotten up there as early as we could there was already a fair queue for the 'golden ropeway'. Crammed into the car, there was an enormous cheer from everyone as we emerged out of the cloud and into the blazing sunshine.
The top of the mountain was breathtaking, literally! (at over 3000 meters, the air was noticeably a bit thin up there). Clear blue skies and a sea of cloud below with various mountain tops poking through. I can't remember having ever seen such a solid layer of cloud below me before, other than in an airplane. The temple and Buddha statue up there were lovely too, but for me the incredible natural scenery was more impressive.
On the way back down the mountain we encountered some monkeys in the trees, but they seemed quite uninterested in stealing anything from us.
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