China - Mountains and Monasteries

This is the first chance we have had to get to the internet for updates guys as we have been staying at 2 monasteries for the past few days, up the Emei mountain, its been really surreal - and bloody freezing, but amazing!
They start chanting and banging drums at 430 in the morning followed by tai chi at 730 all of which we are supposed to join in on... so its been eventful, think i scared some of the monks with my bed head this morning too... dont worry Ger took photos to prove how bad it was! lol
Had to climb 1200 steps to get up to that last one we stayed in called Hongchunping in the mountains and that was after trekking through monkey land to get to it - felt like dorothy in wizard of oz... ger had a monkey try and get in his pocket looking for food as well well funny - cheeky buggers though, but the monkey police were on hand to sort them out!

Also had a boat journey to see the 71metre Dafu buddha that is carved into the mountain - well impressive!

Heading down the Yatzchi river tomorrow for 3 days so will update more then...no sign of shitty wok yet dec but we will keep looking, mind you have had some shitty chicken! Ger going a bit stone mad at the lack of meat too as most of the food here is veggie.. but hey it keeps you regular! hee hee
check out some pics attached
love Deb and Ger

PS just adding some pics as we meet the newlyweds - Marion and Paul in the Baoguo Monastery on the wednesday afternoon - was class totally mad to see them there, but they were in great form and in true irish style we all headed out for pints immediately, just a pity the curfew for the monastery lads was 9pm! had great craic anyhow and said our goodbyes again ithe following morning before we had to head our separate ways again - them North to Beijing and us South to Hong Kong..V. sad!