Emei Shan...or how I never climbed the mountain...

Today started off bad and just got worse.

After having such a fun time on the road to Chengdu, and a few fun filled days here, I had to say goodbye to everyone. I also discovered that I no longer had my MP3 player. The last time I'd seen it was on the bus to Chengdu when it had run out of power. At some point in the three of four days that had passed it had gone "missing".

I've been trying to think of when I'd left my bag anywhere - but can't think where it could have gone missing. And while in the grand scheme of things it's not a major issue, it just added to the mood of the day. No more music for a while :-(

I'd been planning to spend a few days climbing Emei Shan - one of the five mountains in China with special significance to the Buddhists.

So I caught the bus to Emei Shan and checked in at the hotel and set the watch for an early start. The Teddy Bear Hotel has only one dorm room - and to be honest - it was really disappointing. On one side of the wall there was a large curtain - behind which was the kitchen for the hotel next door.

There was no window - just a metal grill - so it was really noisy and seeing what was going on there was no way I'd eat at the hotel next door.

In the middle of the night I woke up and could hardly breath. Normally my asthma doesn't come on like that (unless I spend four or five hours in a room with a cat) - but on this occasion it came on really suddenly.

I laid awake for the rest of the night, trying my best to breath. It was pretty scary - and I was really hoping it wouldn't get any worse - because I wasn't really sure what I could do and my Ventolin was hardly making any impact at this point.

That morning, it took me two hours to get up, and I had a steady day. Thankfully it started to ease off - and although it took me over a week to get back to normal, I was able to get moving a few days later.

I hardly ever get symptoms like that - I think the last time was 15 years ago.

Which explains why I never did climb Emei Shan.

On the positive side - while I was taking a very slow walk one day I ran into three really nice Chinese people who I spent three really enjoyable hours talking to.

Here are some pics:

One of the pagoda's at the base of Emei Shan:



My new Chinese friends:





And an amusing sign I spotted: