Leshan and The Giant Buddha
Trip Start
Sep 01, 2007
1
32
58
Trip End
Oct 22, 2007
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Leshan,
China
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Our first view was from a boat. What an experience that was. There were many ferries and speedboats all heading for the same small stretch of river. The result, ferries physically jostling and bumping each other to allow the hordes on board to get an unimpeded view of the Buddha (no wonder they insist on everyone wearing life jackets!) and speed boats buzzing around like annoying flies getting in the way of the ferries and creating waves that bounced the ferries around even more. With all that we did get a few views of the Buddha but it was almost more interesting to watch the chaos that we were part of and that was all around us.
Back on land we were treated to a delicious lunch with the local speciality of fried bean curd which we really did enjoy. The Sichuan Province that we are visiting is known for its spicy food so we had some chilli with our lunch and lived to tell the tale :-) Our guide was surprised to hear we actually do eat and enjoy spicy food. As we have discovered from a few conversations it seems that tour guides are taught a bunch of strange facts about England and the people who live there: London is always smoggy from pollution (the "Pea Soup" days are still very much here apparently - this from a country whose cities seldom see the sky for smog!), we only drink coffee so it was a great surprise when we told her about the British love of tea and we only cook fish once they no longer have any bones left in them.
Leshan Giant Buddha
On the up side we do speak good English :-)Energised from lunch we were taken to climb the steps to see the Giant Buddha's head and a temple nearby. There is an option to climb down stairs to stand at the feet of the Buddha but, given that there was a minimum of a two hour queuing time just to get to the stairs, we declined the option.
We looked at the Buddha's head from a few angles and took photos to include the ant-sized people in comparison. To give some perspective, the Buddha is 71 metres high, his ears are 7 metres long and you can easily have a picnic on his 8.5 metre long big toe! His hair is made up of about 1,000 "bumps" which are part of a complex internal drainage system which was designed to stop erosion of the Buddha.
After a few more photos while being jostled by the hordes of mostly Chinese tourists clamouring to get the best view and photo possible, we headed off to see the temple. It is astounding how different the Chinese temples are from those in Tibet. These feel more like they are built for tourists and the occasional person who wants to pray is almost in the way whereas in Tibet it feels like it is a privilege to be allowed to be part of such n amazing experience of visiting while the many Pilgrims pay their respects to their Gods.
With that it was back down the stairs where, as usual, we provided much interest and entertainment, especially for the children who have seen very few Westerners. I managed to get a smile out of one sweet shy little girl.
Given the number of visitors meant there was an abundance of bicycle-rickshaws ferrying people around. It was the first time we had seen such an orderly "rickshaw rank". There were also a lot of people riding around on mopeds, scooters and small motorbikes. What made them more noticeable and unusual from elsewhere on our travels was that they had a fashion accessory seldom seen elsewhere, a helmet! Sadly though these helmets were mostly along the lines of children's plastic helmets so not sure how protective they would be!
We drove back to Chengdu and again refused the 6:00 PM supper. We think our guide thinks we are a bit weird.
Tomorrow is another exciting day, we are off to see the Pandas!
