That is one BIG Buddha!

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Now it was time to visit Leshan & the 233 feet tall Buddha carved in the rock, our time in Leshan was very brief, we left the cold & rain of Emei & headed off, I thought Leshan would be cold & rainy too so I put layers on again to keep warm. I was exhausted because of our noisy neighbours AGAIN so had a little sleep in the car on the way there, when I woke up the sun was shining & you could actually see the sky, needless to say I did not need the layers.

We had to take a detour because a bridge to get to the Buddha was under construction but eventually we arrived, we got on a boat & had to put life jackets, again we were the only western tourists on this trip, when we set off the view was pretty cool but could have been better had it not been for the mist that had appeared again. As I looked around I began to recognise some of the scenery from photos I had seen of the Buddha, as we got closer I got my camera out ready to take some pictures & it’s a good job I did, the boat initially went straight past the Buddha because of the currents then on the way back it sort of hovered in front of the Buddha so we could actually take pictures. Our guide started to laugh as someone on the boat made an announcement “She’s telling everyone they can buy a picture for 100 Yuan (about£10) & it’s really hard to get a good picture in front of the Buddha on a boat”, that is when I noticed that the front of the boat was hovering directly in front of the Buddha whilst the rest of us at the back were at an angle, I decided to wait & as the boat set off I got some pictures from directly in front of the Buddha.

After our boat trip we got to walk around the Buddha & see it up close, I was really pleased we got to see it up close too because the misty sky was quite bad & in my pictures of the Buddha from the boat you can just about see his head. Unfortunately this was another place with lots of people so I had to queue up at the good spots to take pictures, it was pretty awe inspiring walking around such a big monument, when we were stood at the base I had to tip toe to be able to touch the Buddha’s toe nail. The steps either side were VERY steep, which wasn’t so bad going down but on the way up it was harder than when we were walking at the top of Mount Emei, by the time we got to the top Nikki & I had to have a little sit down, I thought my heart was going to explode it was beating so fast!

After a little look around at the temples at the top we then left Leshan for Chengdu & that is when we started to get really excited about seeing the Pandas the next day.

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Photos

Talk to the hand because the face ain't listening! lol
Sorry I couldn't help myself. This is the first person to raise money to build the Buddha.