The rain was pouring down again when I woke up. I had finally gotten warm under that pink duvet. I woke up early because of all the noises. I didn’t shower, wash or brush my teeth (which I haven’t done on the train rides either), it seems so pointless when every thing else is so dirty and I am sleeping fully clothed. We went down to 7-11 for breakfast. I had pancakes with banana and chocolate again, Mr. Zhang gave yet another show in tai chi. Peter “invented” a new breakfast dish, scrambled eggs and smoked pork, the Chinese equivalent to bacon and eggs (smoked pork was a nasty brown thing hanging from the roofs, but it actually tasted great), which he got to write onto the menu.

Miraculously enough it stopped raining as we were about to start walking. It was still heavily clouded, but that just made it the perfect walking weather. It was hard walking down (the monastery is at 1100 meters), but I still felt surprisingly good, not in the least because I had recovered from the blisters that had bothered me so much at the Great Wall. I even led the way for a while, but that was only because I was in a hurry to get to the nearest toilet… When we arrived at Qyinguin Pavilion we had to decide if we wanted to walk all the way down to the hotel, a 3-4 hour walk with Kath, or if we wanted to walk a shorter distance and take a cab part of the way with Mr. Zhang. I chose the last option, after all it is not really my thing to over-exert myself, so did 5 of the others. And just as well, according to those who took the long route we didn’t miss anything much. After checking into the same hotel – Emei Youchian Hotel – we had a long lunch at the Teddy Bear Cafe. After that it was only to wait impatiently for the hot water to be turned on at  about 18.30 (it is quite common for hot water to be turned on only for a period in the evenings). There wasn't much else to do in Baoguo, unless you wanted to go and see more temples….

It was great to shower before dinner. Dinner was at Teddy Bear Cafe again. The group was split into two, those tired of Chinese cooking and those who wanted another banquet meal. It was also time to stop drinking water, we had an eight hour bus ride in front of us the next day, the number of toilet stops was highly uncertain.