To the top

The 52 km to the top of mount Emei were basically all upphill through beautiful and shifting scenery: from green and warm to foggy and bare...

The ride up took 5 hours, after that there was still 1,5 hours of walking up massive stairs before reaching the top. Nothing much to see: fogg and darkness... So I decided to stay to give the "Golden Summit" another chance.

I got the last room in one of the hotels on the top and got up early to see the sunrise that can be really beautiful here. This morning, however, was quite foggy and bleak. There were some glimpses though of the mountains in the west and also I got a good view of the monestries and temples on the top. I had a "budhist only" breakfast of rice soup with spicy vegetables for 6 yuan. Very cheap considering that the cable car brings up 1200 tourists an hour and everything else was about double the price of things down in the village.

After a good look at the top I took the cable car down to safe my knees and then got back on my bike to ride the 52 km downhill: a nice start of the day. Now I just had a western style lunch with a chicken burger and I am ready for the second part of todays riding.

How strange is China? Very! The guesthouse owner just seriously explained that tourists can not travel in Tibet because the Lama is a bad man and the government thinks he wants to attack the tourists, but not the chinese... what can you say to that?