Firstly, at the bottom of my post make sure you read Marcus' latest - we have a new whiz bang blog feature...go us ;-)
Today is our last proper day in Chengdu, and as if to stick it to mother nature we decided to tackle Le Shan. Or should I say Da Fo, as Le Shan is the town. After a hearty breakfast we headed to the local bus station from where we would catch a long distance bus. We had no further information than that. Not a heck of a lot of planning on our behalf, but supposedly there would be a bus. Well there was a bus and we were on it before we knew it. The two hours passed relatively smoothly, given we had the two front seats and could see any impending doom directly in front of the bus. I have to say, when travelling by bus or taxi it is infinetly easier to be completely oblivious to what is happening on the roads! So the two front seats on the bus aren't ideal as the bus swerves and overtakes and narrowly avoids a thousand vehicles, as you know that when disastor strikes - you're heading straight through the windscreen!
Alas, arrived in one piece. However, we weren't there yet. Waiting on the side of the road was a guy with a van, telling people he would take us to Da Fo. For some reason we didn't question this at all, didn't ask cost, time nothing...just climbed in. Turns out it was an easy trip all for an extra 2 yuan which delivered us to the entrance about 15 minutes away. On the first bus at a toilet pit stop this young girl came up to us to say hello. She was a Canadian girl and was literally bursting at the seams to talk to us. Couldn't figure out why, but she said we were the first foreigners she had seen since arriving in China. I figured maybe she was travelling by herself and probably in need of conversation. As the bus continued we said we'd see her at the end. Well she also got into this van, with another young girl who was Chinese/Canadian. Turns out they were friends and were staying with her relatives (hence why the poor kid was probably dying to talk to us, she is probably losing her mind!) We ended up having lunch with them but made our own way after that as the Chinese/Canadian girl was a pain in the butt. Had that know it all attitude, even though I imagine we have spent more time in this country than she. Anyhoo, I am telling you all of this because she went on and ON about how it wasn't really hot and how the pollution wasn't bad blah blah blah. I can tell you, it is so damned stinking hot, regardless of where you are from. So we ran into these two girls at the head of the buddha, and this girl was STUFFED! Marcus and I both cracked up and tongue in cheek said "So, feeling the heat yet?" She didn't respond. I believe because she was panting so hard and clutching a railing for support ;-)
So off we went in search of the buddha. Da Fo is the tallest buddha in the world, he was carved out of a cliff face, taking decades and is more than 70m in height. I think we took the scenic route in trying to find him as we walked for 2 solid hours up and up and up some more moutainside. Just call me mountain goat. Couldn't even begin to tell you how many water bottles we went through and Marcus is out now trying to find some sports type drinks we can have before going to bed to rehydrate some more. Along the way though was beautiful scenery. It was peaceful and dotted all around the place were various buddhas, our favourites being those found in caves! Instant respite from the sun and heat.
Along the way we stumbled upon a fav Chinese pasttime....massive public arguments. God they love a good rumble, and don't care who hears them. For some unknown reason a young guy, about 30, was absoulutely going nuts at this old man, one of the bottle collectors. God only knows what had started this, but I couldn't imagine a thing this old man could have done to get this guy so enraged. Other people were yelling at the young guy, including a woman near us who was motioning towards us, I assume saying something like - hey, not in front of the tourists! Makes us look bad! But as the argument continued, this old guy barely saying a word, the young guy hit out with his fan (everyone carries fans here, including us!) splitting the man's garbage bag. The garbage bag was on its last legs but contained all the bottles this poor man had collected today. Well bottles went everywhere. I felt so sorry for this man, as he meekly got down on his knees and took off his t-shirt, trying to figure out if he could gather the bottles in his shirt as this young guy just smugly walked away. It's so ludicrously hot out, and here is this man being berrated by this guy. Surely it wasn't a battle worth fighting, whatever had happened.
Eventually we found Da Fo and he didn't disappoint. Such a huge thing, and so serene looking. Makes you wonder why anyone undertakes these sorts of things! By sheer fluke it was fairly quiet up there which gave us a good chance to take it all in.
It was't long after this that we headed off. We had no idea how we would get back to where the original bus had dropped us, but hoped there would be a pedicab or similar that could help us out. Well thankfully there was a bus at the exit! In true Chinese style though it didn't leave until full so we spent an extra hour sitting on the bus being assaulted by a Chinese dubbed version of Robbo Cop on the tv. I'm always surprised as there are never any other foreigners on these buses. They are such a good alternative to tours, cost a fraction of the price and are always easy to catch and identify. I really don't know why more people don't make use of them. The alternative from here was to hire a van, which would cost 650 rmb, regardless of how many people you had. So even if you had the maximum of 6 people, that's still over 100 yuan each. We did it in under that and it was all too easy. We even got to share the return ride home with possibly some sort of Chinese pop star. Well, he was uber Chinese cool looking and appeared to have an assistant answering his calls, so we figured maybe he was someone or just very demanding of his friends!
So that was our final day in Chengdu. I think this is a city that could really grow on you if you lived here. Unfortunately we have hit it at its summer peak. I think it could have a lot of charm, although it is so heavily polluted, it's really amazed us just how grey and heavy the sky is.
Tomorrow afternoon we leave for Kunming, with another llloooooonnnnggg train ride ahead of us. We get on the train at 3pm and don't get off until some time after 10am on Friday. But we are looking forward to joining the tour we have booked, and having someone else do all the organising for the next week and a half! It will make for a nice change just to be ferried around.
And now I need to go take a shower before the other people in the room ask me to leave.
Good night!
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2 comments:
Just further to Courtney's post, the giant buddah actually sits nestled in a squared out section of rock face - the sheer amount of carving that it must have took to cut it out is mind-boggling.
The rock face is litterally right on a very wide fast moving river. It's actually in a fork of the river where two large rivers intersect - the Min and Dado rivers. Opposite the river is the small city of LeShan which actually looks like a quite interesting place. It doesn't look touristy, but it may have been a nice little place to stay the night.
Because the two rivers intersect here, there's actually some small rapids out in the middle, and the water that is actually where the giant buddah is flows really fast. The tourist boats that ferry people in front of the buddah for a look at it are actually pointing up river and pretty much flat out on their engines against what is a really fast moving current.
We sort of wanted to go on the boat to have a look but it would have been soo hot out there. The day was just so drippingly hot, the humidity being right up there.
Instead as Courtney said, we trekked 2 hours from entry gate right over the mountain up steps which were as steep as the steepest part of the great wall. There were Buddist pagoda like structures sticking out from the mountain - first at the bottom, then half-way up, then finally at the top. The scenary here was amazing and I am sure I have seen this particular steep step rise used in a movie.
The smog was thick here and if you squinted - like in Pandaville, you could pretend it was mist rather than smog.
We were walking around absolutely positively stuffed. The climbing would have been quite tiring on a normal day - not super bad, but strenuous all the same due to climbing steep narrow steps(like the great wall), but the weather made it a killer.
There was a nice little shaded area at the top with some really cool little bamboo chairs - a tea area. We had to stop and fan ourselves while downing water - i don't think i have ever seen Courtney ever looking so shiny!
All in all it was a fun experience in some really interesting terrain.
Between Leshan and Chengdu, either side of the bus was basically non-stop farmland. Tea, what looked like rice and/or wheat, fish farms - you name it. It's amazing to think just how much of the land is used for farming - i guess feeding a population the size of China's is no small feat.
Either side of the road was some really interesting little houses, based on the typical chinese courtyard style, where they are square around a central open area. Again, it's just a shame that such a heavy cloud of smog covers everything. They seriously need to do something about the air in this country - it is severely not_cool.
Hi,
Great to see some people getting out there and exploring China on their own steam. I'm Australian and just visited le shan today with my gf and her parents (who are chengdu folk) - anyway it is an unbelievable sight indeed!
good stuff!
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