From Emei Mountain: A Disappointment Turns Into Another Adventure

Today we were scheduled to go on a Foreigners' Cultural Trip sponsored by the university. The university tries to send us to culturally appropriate places at least once each semester. Unfortunately the weather threatened rain in the morning so we got a call from Ms. Enliven to inform us that the trip was postponed. So we are all dressed up and no place to go.

Let's go to Hei Zhu Gou, Sunee suggested. Great idea. The disappointment suddenly had turned into another China adventure!

We all got on the local bus (all six of us) to downtown Emei City. From there we caught another bus to the Emei main bus station.

The bus let us off across the street from the main bus station. Notice the clouds are still threatening us with rain. The monument you see is the typical monument found in most tourist cities - the Wuwei flying horse.

The bus station is what I call Late Russian Socialist Architecture. Massive, large and absolutely ugly. Seems this style can be found all over China, proving to any casual observer how much the Russians influenced China during the 50's and 60's.

Sunee finds out that our bus for the first leg of our journey (Ebian) leaves at 1120. That gives us about 45 minutes or so to get something to eat. Here John discusses the schedule with Tom. Neither had a clue as to what the Chinese meant. Made for a great picture, though.

The dining room in the bus terminal was not bad and it was clean. We decided to get a quick Chinese lunch before we left.

Sunee orders each of us the dining room specialty. Actually they had nothing else so we really did not get a choice. Three items plus rice for ten Yuan. Cheap even if it turned out bad.

The lunch was very good with the three items being quite tasty (not delicious) and filling. A nice start to our upcoming adventure.

The time is 1111 and we are about to board our bus to Ebian. Can you see the excitement on the faces of young adventurers?

Our bus leaves the Emei Mountain area and passes through some beautiful scenery and small mountain villages. Here is a quick look at one of those small villages.

Streams and mountains and lots of trees help pass the two hour trip to Ebian. The scenery alone is well worth the trip.

Small villages and tea plantations dot the mountain sides as we make our way to our destination.

A river below in the distance adds even more beauty to the clouds that hang over the mountains.

The trip was scenic from start to finish. The air was clear and crisp with visions of our adventure.

As we approached Ebian we began to see the beginnings of a small but active industrial base. Factories both small and large put up smoke that distracted from the scenery.

Here a small farm is nestled between the river and our road. Sichuan! Home of the ever growing vegetable plants.

We arrived at the Ebian bus station two hours into our journey. The bridge across the river stood out as soon as we got off the bus. Ebian is located on both sides of the river and is bounded by mountains all around.

Another view of the bridge, this time with some beautiful flowers adding interest to the photo.

"What a very friendly young lady," I commented to Sunee after taking this picture. "She is a tourist tout who is trying to get people to go to a hotel where she can get a commission," Sunee replied. Hey, she was cute and friendly for whatever reason. We figured out that we were a bit late to be traveling on to Hei Zhu Gou which was our original intent. We will make a return trip next weekend and travel on toe Hei Zhu Gou, a place of great mystery.

Monument of some kind with Yi writing. This was located in front of the bridge as we crossed the river. I recognized the Yi writing from the Yi museum we had visited in Chuxiong a couple of weeks ago,

Same monument with Chinese characters. The trike was the mode of transportation in Ebian.

There was a train coming on the right as I took this picture. The bridge is to my immediate left as I face the river.

Here is the panorama of the same scene above. The scenery was beautiful and the air was filled with mountain aromas of moist wood, rock and foggy trees fluttering in the breeze. After taking this photo we walked across the bridge and made a right down the only street available. On the left was the river and on the right was the mountain.

Dave and I thought this was a terrific picture so we both took it.

I stepped back a few feet and got both of the trikes with the same background.

A few hundred meters down the street, Tom scrambled down a cement embankment to the river's edge. The water, he declared, was cold and moving swiftly along.

As we walked down the road, we saw several of these fishing poles laying unattended on the cement fence overlooking the water. John picked one up just for me to take a picture of.

What were these invisible fishermen using for bate. Grubworms or maybe some kind of maggots. The pan stunk like maggots.

I took a picture of these rice buckets before we decided to eat at this restaurant. Loved the looks of these two buckets of rice covered with the rattan looking tops.

We decided to eat at this restaurant because the pork looked really good. We were not disappointed. In fact, we all felt this was the best pork (ham) we had eaten in a long time. It was beautifully smoked and lean.

Tom picks up some Harbin beer to try. He had heard of it before and wanted to see what it tasted like. In addition the Chinese guys across from our table were anxious to toast our arrival and we needed something to toast with.

The first toast was for our arrival. The two Chinese guys were more than friendly and toasted each of us then offered cigarettes to us. I neither drank any beer nor did I smoke any cigarettes.

As the Chinese guys finished their lunch, they once again came and toasted us as they left the restaurant. Who says the Chinese are not friendly?

On further into the downtown area we ran into a tea shop with this little girl acting as the proprietor. Later she got her mother to come out to visit with us. Of course, I was interested in their local tea.

We bought 500 grams of the locally produced tea. It looked good and it was not expensive. Actually, Tom bought 250 gram and we bought 250 gram. I will be giving it a taste and writing up the results at my chinateatravels.blogspot.com website.

A Yi symbol. We often saw these while visiting Chuxiong in Yunnan earlier this month.

Around the corner and into an open area we meet all of these kids just hanging out on a Saturday afternoon.

This movies gives you a feel for our interaction with all these great kids. We had a really good time visiting with them.

Two kids anxious to visit with the laowai who just happened to show up in their town.

I finally get someone to take my picture with the kids. All the other guys were busy asking and answering questions.

The girl in the middle on your left turned out to be a really great help. She pretty much took charge of our visit and explained what was going on in the little town. Later she arranged a couple of trikes to take us back to the bus station. She was a very impressive young lady!

TWINS!

These guys kept jumping in front of my camera so I got them together for a picture of buddies. Most of the guys were too shy to interact with us which was totally opposite the little girls. In fact, these guys showed a healthy respect for the little girls who were interacting with us. Almost as if they feared for their well-being if they messed with the girls.

The guys were just goofing around and showed little interest in interacting with us foreigners except when we pointed a camera their way. I call this photo: two nuts.

Sunee discusses possible English names for these girls after a request from the little girl in the yellow who took charge of our well-being. Thus began the English name process which involved about an hour of our time. Tom took out his notepad and began writing English names down based on the Chinese names he heard. The little girls worked him to death, almost.