Anyway, we reached the cable car station at 530am and had to wait till 6am for the counter to open. There was a monastery called 接引殿 and it looked really spooky in the dark with lighted red lanterns. After awhile, more people came including a tour group of about 15. In that group were a few 可爱妹妹. At 6am, the manager of the station came and he told us that during the thunderstorm last night, some cables were struck by lightning and hence the cable cars were not operational. They need to do some technical check before letting tourists take the cars and that would take quite some time. This meant that we would not be able to reach the top 金顶 in time for the sunrise!
However, he pointed a building in the east to us and said we could still view the sunrise behind there. But that wouldn’t be as good a spot as on the summit of course. Still everyone though feeling utterly disappointed, had to make do with this new alternative and moved to that viewing area. Among us, Kenneth of course was the most disappointed. He had been waiting for this day to come for so long only to lose out to bad luck in the end. And we all thought with the rain last night, whatever fog and mist would be washed away and we would have a clear sky today. Who would have thought the lightning had struck the cables!?
As usual, even though Kenneth was grumbling all the way, he still professionally set up his tripod, adjusted his SLR and so on and like all other tourists, stood there and waited patiently. JH walked away to explore the surroundings for better viewing area. For the rest of the time, we were just standing there waiting, looking in a general direction from which we suspect the sun would rise. And also to admire the 云海.
All eyes were fixed towards the East, afraid of missing the wonderful scene (but sunrise very slow one mah, not as if the sun would suddenly pop up like in the cartoons).
But soon, everyone grew impatient and started to chat and eat tidbits. That was when a lady suddenly exclaimed, “出来了!” We all turned and saw the first gleam of light above the clouds. All cameras pointed to that spot and we held our breaths and waited. Then we heard another lady’s shout (not sure if it is the same one), “在那里!” and we all turned about 40 degrees to our left. That was when we realised the previous one was a false alarm. The previous spot was actually just an area that was first brightened up by the sun and hence we thought that was where the sun would rise. From this new real sunrise area, we could see straight golden lines coming out from behind the clouds.
Slowly, a little round golden curve began to appear and it seemed like getting bigger pretty fast. My initial idea of sunrise was a very very slow process, and the movement of the sun should be too minute to be witnessed by the naked eyes. Never would I think that I can actually see the sun climbing up behind the clouds. I was filled with excitement and could already picture a nice egg yolk rising up in no time.
Then, all of a sudden, the golden curve seemed to lose energy to climb anymore and stopped. The sun had stopped to rise today?! I couldn’t believe my eyes when the curve actually began to get smaller! SUNDROP!? Before I can comprehend what was going on, JH said the clouds are rising also. The clouds had risen faster than the sun. Very stupid me. Big disappointment for everyone. It was too cruel. We thought we weren’t going to see the sunrise because of the cable car issue initially. Then when we finally get to see something and everyone was so excited, we were let down again. “Hope is the last thing to die”. Even though in this sate we all knew that it would be a waste of time to wait further, we still stood there for another 15min for a miracle.
No miracle of course in the end. But good news was the cable car service was back which meant we need not climb up to the top which would take at least 2 hrs. Each car can only take 2 people at a time and we had to jump into the car quickly as the cars were circulated from top to bottom non-stop. I can tell Kenneth was really disappointed when in the cable car. He had taken very nice sunrise pictures before when he was in Vietnam and thought this time would be another good exp. As for me, perhaps I am not that interested in photography as well as scenery and so the impact wasn’t that much for me.
When we reached the top, everywhere was under construction but we were aware of that before and hence there was no additional let down. Really nothing much up there except for a golden elephant-Buddha statue. The clouds were closer that’s all, not much more spectacular. What caught my eyes (not another chio-bu if you think that’s what I am only interested) was the sight of those labourers carrying heavy loads on their backs climbing the stairs. Almost no machinery around. And as many as a third of the labourers were females, doing the same work as the men. All work seemed to be done by pure human labour only, which of course is of abundance in China. It made me think that high GDP growth in China is accredited to large number of workers thrown in, and not due to productive activities. Sheer brute force GDP growth.
We had a little picnic in an open field and the packets of biscuits we brought were all bloated up due to difference in pressure. Well, we were perhaps at 3000m at the summit and that explains this phenomenon. Mist rose up all of a sudden and soon the entire place was blurry but that mist left as quickly as it came. 妖气太重. With nothing to see, we made our way down to Lei Dong Ping (where we watched our ¼ sunrise just now).
Descending wasn’t as easy as we thought because firstly our legs had not yet recovered, and secondly the steps weren’t exactly even and were slippery due to the rain last night. Surprisingly I was able to keep up with the rest this time round. For most part of the descend, we were the only people around as most people would take the cable car down upon knowing that it would take 1.5hrs to descend. We heard 2 voices closing up from behind us and turned around only to be stunned. 2 Kungfu monks were flying down 2 or 3 steps at a time. And they had no trekking shoes! Just their canvas kungfu shoes. 天下武功出少林. They flew past us and disappeared out of sight in no time. 佩服佩服.
Finally we reached Lei Dong Ping and from there we took a coach all the way to the bottom of Mount Emei. We were not stupid enough to walk down another 10hrs. Come to think of it, we should take the coach up and then walk down instead of the other way round. Well, climbing is another form of enjoyment I guess (my foot! Literally).
We were on our way back to Chengdu (on board the bus was a chio mother wearing tight green shirt and sexy mini-shorts) by noon. At the end of the day, I feel that highlight of Emei should be the sunrise but for us, it was the joy of conquering this 3000+ meter mountain. Really felt my fitness had leveled up after the climb.
Back at Sims, we made final preparations for tomorrow. The day we began to travel on road to Tibet. There are bound to be unforeseen happenings, tough times due to poor weather and road conditions and inevitably, conflicts among the 4 of us (or maybe with the driver too). It is going to be 16 exciting days on the road. Exactly what will be installed for us on this journey? Nobody knows. (hey, remind me of Ann Kok’s song thousands of years ago, haha Nobody knows…. Nobody knows….).
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