Justin is right two days is enough to walk to the top spending a night at a monastery on the way up. If you want to start first thing in the morning then you can stay at Teddy Bear Hostel at the bottom of the mountain, they have all types of beds and the owner is very helpful. He can even call and reserve a monastery bed for you. although you don’t need to.
After you get to the top you have four options:
1- walk down, pointless really and is hard on the legs.
2- bus straight down, costs around 50 RMB and will take you to ba guo si bus station where you can take a bus to Chengdu.
3- stay at a hotel on the top and wake for the 5am sunrise, this is very expensive approx. 500 per night.
4- stick around and wait until the sunrise, a tiring option but the most popular amongst young Chinese. After take the bus down.
On a clear day the sunrise is breathtaking, if it is not clear you have stayed up all night for nothing.
The buses to Emei leave from xin nan men station and are every 6 minutes during peak time. Don’t bother waiting for the ba guo si bus, some of them don’t even go there anyway. Just get the bus to the city then jump in a van when they come on the bus looking for you, shouldn’t pay more than 10 kuai a head.
When coming back to Chengdu, buses from the main bus station leave every 20 minutes, buses from ba guo si leave every hour.
Be prepared for the following prices
Return bus to Emei 85
taxi to the mountain 10-20
entrance ticket 150
night at monastery 30-100
bus down mountain 50
Also food is a obviously not cheap on the mountain, you will eat a regular Chinese meal for around 20-30 kuai.
Unfortunately it is not a cheap trip anymore, the mountain has become big business. Luckily for me my wife’s family live on the mountain so everything is free (:
I know this is a long post but hopefully somebody finds it useful. It’s rare something comes up that I actually know about.
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