Leshan Hotels
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Day trip to Leshan
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We woke up excited to make the day trip to Leshan to visit the World's Largest Seated Buddha. After breakfast at the hotel, we took taxis to the bus station. Liz and Dylan got us tickets for our two hour bus ride, and it was a really nice bus. We watched some Chinese music videos (D.T. in the House) and some kind of action movie. About one hour into the trip, traffic was stopped on the road. It was an extremely foggy day and we assumed there had been an accident up ahead. Eventually we drove on a bit farther until we reached a tollbooth area where all traffic was diverted into a side road. We ended up sitting there for well over an hour, though I lost track of time. Everyone got off the bus and we took a walk around in the nearby fields. Our relief at finally moving again did not last long as we were stopped again. This went on and on, stop and go, fora long time and we indeed saw two accidents on the road. The short version of the story is that our 2 hour bus ride took more than 6 hours and we finally arrived in Leshan around 3:15 pm.
We had planned to spend the day in the town and hiking around the Giant Buddha. Now our time here was brief as the last bus back to Chengdu was at 7:30. We decided to make the most of it and headed to the Buddha anyways. After the bus trek though we needed food, so we found a restaurant near the Buddha. Again, very good local food. We made our way into the park, which was pretty amazing. We saw many Buddhas (see photos). One of the great things we did was climb many steps up the the great buddha with all the locks on it. You can buy a lock and have your name inscribed on it, and lock it to the railing or somewhere for good luck. Kyle and I did this and put our lock close to the one that Barbara and Tom had put there on their visit last year. I would love to come back and try to find our lock someday. We continued making our way up to the top of the hill of the Giant Buddha, all the time racing the clock. The Giant Buddha was just as impressive as you think it would be. It sits 71 meters tall and watches over the river. We climbed down the cliff on some very tall and uneven steps down the bottom. Photo ops at the bottom, and then it was time to climb back up. We found our way back to the front gate as quick as we could, but by the time we made it back it was after 6 pm and the park had closed. We were locked in.... shouts for help in Chinese went unheard. Time was ticking. Finally I found a door that unbolted and we were out. Had to get taxis back to the bus station, and of course our taxis got stuck in traffic. We figured out we were within walking distance to the bus station so got out and Dylan and I ran ahead to get bus tickets. It felt like we were on the Amazing Race. We were able to get tickets for the bus and even had time to eat some noodles. The ride home took less than 2 hours...quite the day.
Where I stayed:
Ke Hua Yuan Hotel
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