With a chance to stop en-route between India and US in China, I took this opportunity to visit Chengdu for a week to see 3 World Heritage Sites around the city, and Emeishan was a site I wanted to see most. I went to Xinnanmen bus station before 6 AM as I heard that the first bus to Leshan will leave at 6.30, but when I arrived, a local told me that the first bus will leave at 7.30 and recommended me to use minivan at 7 AM instead, a nice alternative. The minivan was very fast and I was in Leshan within 1.30 hour, but minivan did not stop at Xiaoba Bus station where most of tourist buses did, so I planned to take a taxi to the Dafo (Giant Buddha), but no taxi wanted to go there during the rush hour, so the driver offered to take me to the bus stop where a bus to Dafo will pass. Finally, I was able to be at the gate of Dafo Scenic Park at 9 AM. When I saw the Dafo, I was impressed with the gigantic size, the statue was not beautiful but very inspiring. Beware the walkway circuit to the Buddha feet was very steep; I was extremely tired after I completed the route. Then I went to Xiaoba bus station to catch a bus to Baoguo Si which is the entrance of Emeishan.

After arrived at Baoguo Si, I walked to Fuhu Temple, a nice temple with beautiful Sichuan vernacular style. My favorite spot was the Arhat Hall with countless gilded Buddhist saints' statues, the most impressive one was the statue of Goddess of Mercy with her many heads and many hands. Then I walked to Baoguo Temple, and saw beautiful manmade waterfalls and a bell golden pavilion. A bus to Leidongping took me 2 hours, along the route I passed lovely forests and tea plantations, when the bus reached the entrance gate of Emeishan, the driver stopped for all passengers to buy entrance ticket. After entrance, the road became hairpin to ascend the high mountain; the weather was very cold with fog and snow. When the bus reached Leidongping, the freezing fog was very thick, the walkways to Jinding (Golden Summit) were covered with ice and mud, I could not see the way at all, so I just followed a group of Chinese. I had to walk and climb for another 30 minutes to reach cable car, and the last cable car will leave within an hour! In the thick fog I did my best to carefully climb the icy stairs as fast as possible. Suddenly I saw something was moving in the fog, I was terrified at first until I found out that it was just a big monkey on the tree waiting for food from tourists. Within 50 minutes I saw the cable car station, but with low visibility I could not find ticket booth and entered the building from exit way! I had to run to the entrance to buy ticket before I could take a last cable car of that day.

At first, I was very disheartened by the weather, but when the cable car descended to Jinding passing the thick fog, I found blue sky with bright sun! Everybody in the cable car cheered with joy. At Jinding, the abode of Puxian Bodhisattva, there was a giant golden statue of Puxian sitting on four elephants, the statue was very beautiful. The scenery was breathtaking with beautiful mountains, big silver and golden temples and gorgeous sea of cloud at sunset with only 20 tourists and minus 4 Celsius, truly a holy place for spiritual seekers and photographers. There were 2 hotels on Jinding which confused many tourists in travel websites namely Golden Summit Hotel (Jinding Da Jiudian), recommended by Chinese Authority, and Golden Summit Villa (Jinding Shanzhuang), this one got nice reviews in Chinese private websites. I stayed in Golden Summit Villa as I trusted local reviews more than the Chinese government. The hotel was nice, clean, and cheaper, the dinner was also good. In the morning, I saw the famous sunrise with rays of light creating beautiful multicolor sea of clouds. Then I walked back to Leidongping. I walked pass hundreds of pilgrims, most of them were Chinese tourists carrying big incenses, but also Tibetans, Buddhist monks, nuns, lamas, I also heard other Asian languages. I took a minivan to Wannian Temple and did some hiking back to Baogua Si before I took the last bus back to Chengdu.

Emeishan was my second UNESCO listed Chinese Buddhist holy mountains after Wutaishan. Initially I questioned its OUV, but after visit, these two sites were totally different, not only architecture but also the landscape topography environment. Emeishan seemed to be more developed than Wutaishan since it was listed in 1996 much earlier than Wutaishan in 2009 and attracted more tourists. While temples in Wutaishan in my memory were much more grandeur, Emeishan had its own charm with moss covered local building styles dotted with many lovely flowerpots, a great contrast with mainstream Chinese architecture. Another big contrast and a good point on authenticity was at Wutaishan there still was no modern big golden or bronze statue of Bodhisattva, other 3 Buddhist holy mountains, Putuoshan, Jiuhuashan and Emeishan already did. Even though Wutaishan seemed to be more authentic, but I preferred Emeishan as the environment was much better; dense tropical forest did very well to cover all ugly development, while Wutaishan was very dry with few big trees. The natural phenomenon of Emeishan was another draw, the sea of clouds at sunrise and sunset were breathtaking. Hundreds of pilgrims I saw did show me its existing cultural significant among Buddhism devotees in Asia as sacred mountains, a thing I could not directly find in Wutaishan, and considered the price to reach Jinding from Baoguo at 445 Yuan including entrance fee, bus and cable car, these pilgrims had to save their money in order to show devotion to Puxian which impressed me a lot. And if you are a fan of wuxia film, Emeishan was the place where Emeiquan originated. Emeishan in my opinion, a great place to appreciate and understand the value of World Heritage Site that China offered to the world with no need to raise a few eyebrows.