Mount Éméi Shān

An overnight train, a lift from some guy that worked for the UN, and multiple near death experiences on a bus with serious defects finally saw us arrive at our forested mountain destination of Éméi Shān. Emma was so excited she couldn't help but ruin a perfectly good photo of our room.

Whilst Brad slept, Emma trekked up the local sacred mountain. On the advice of our hosts, Emma took a 'monkey stick' to fend off/beat the aggressive and fearless monkeys. She successfully made it an insignificant part of the way before hollering in the trees had her heading back to base.

Some pic's on the way up:

A night of planning a 150km trip to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding (CRBOGPB) seemed like a waste of time when, at breakfast, the friendly lady monk told us that a panda breeding facility was actually within walking distance. On the way, we bought a can of redbull from a mini-market. Haha oh my god the can was gold! Seriously gold! WTF!? China really is a crazy country!

Our arrival at the Panda facility was almost met with disaster when Em attempted to take a guarding giant panda's bamboo. Luckily for her, the panda wasn't real. If it was, she would have been brutally attacked and killed, but not eaten because panda's eat bamboo.

Inside the facility was the 'Panda Inn'...

Isles of panda souvenirs...

And of course pandas!

And so our brief visit to Éméi Shān came to an end.