The Day We Climbed Mount Emei - 1985

In 1985 our Chinese Leader, "Boss Yang" sent us with three students to the city of Leshan for a vacation. We stayed in a hotel the first night that was an adventure in itself. The hotel had a picture window in the bathroom looking out to the hallway. The bathroom door was a clear glass door. At six in the morning the loudspeakers in the street began broadcasting the news. After a breakfast of pickled vegetables and rice gruel we set out for the mountain.

We took a bus to the mountain to begin our walk to the top. We were planning to stay overnight at the top and come back the next day. The three boys had been given strict instructions to stay with Bernice and make sure she didn't fall or have any troubles. They were carrying some food for our dinner and breakfast the next day.

Both Bernice and I had purchased walking sticks because the entire path to the top, many miles long, had very well worn stone steps. So many people walk to the top of the mountain that to protect the path, the Chinese have hewn stone steps the entire length. Just as we started out on our trip we met two Chinese porters carrying the bodies of two old ladies who had died on the mountain. Mount Emei is one of four sacred mountains where old people climb to the top to die close to their God Buddha.

We were trudging along for some time when some old men with a sedan chair approached Bernice seeking a person wishing to escape the pain of walking to the top. They asked her if she wanted to ride to the top. Bernice asked the price and gasped when they said how much the ride would cost. In reality it was about $10 US but she was too stubborn to pay that much.

They followed her for several miles cajoling her all the time. For each short distance the price got less and less. It was a steep climb and Bernice was getting tired. Finally when the price got to $2 she got on the chair and off the sped so fast I could not keep up. An hour or so later I arrived at the top to join her. We got a room at the only hotel on the mountain. The room cost $1 for the tow of us. We were assigned a room on the second floor. To get to the room you climbed a ladder leaning against the wall.

The beds were straw and the bedding was a Chinese army sleeping bag. They also gave each of us a Chinese army overcoat to wear. It was quite cold on top of the mountain. The hotel was complete with dozens of rats that spent the night in our room fighting each other. We guessed it was they were fighting over who would get to eat our breakfast. We had a loaf of bread that Bernice had put in a desk drawer in our room. The rats were gnawing the drawer for a chance to get the bread so Bernice put the bread in my sleeping bag. After that they spent the night chewing through the straw mattress to get at the bread and me.

After a breakfast of bread, some pineapple and rice, we went to the viewing spot to see a local phenomenon they call the Buddha light. It is a beautiful rainbow on your shadow on the clouds below. You have to be very lucky to catch the just right conditions to see this sight, according to our students; we were not to be disappointed if we didn't see it on our one trip to the mountain. Thus prepared we started out to view the sight. Many others were there as well. There it was, a wondrous sight.