Leshan and the giant buddha

---

Arriving at Leshan train station i was finally blessed with some warm sunshine for a second i even cursed not having my sunglasses as I couldn't see a thing whilst looking for directions to the bus. Leshan is a relatively small city and seemed quiet sleepy when i arrived at my hotel many places I'm guessing are having extended New Years holidays but from my brief time here there seem to be quite a few places closed down and looking a little rough around the edges. It's a possibility that that the city focuses a lot on the Buddha scenic area which looks quite nice and not much else but that is just from the little i have seen in my 2 days here. Also considering what a huge tourist attraction the Buddha is I'm a little surprised how many locals here stop dead in the street to stare at me as if they have never seen a foreigner before but I also think a lot of people only come in for the day and not stay for a day or so as i have its interesting though i had one woman practically try and join me in the already terrifying open cubicles its bad enough that we can all see each other without you trying to come in here with me!



So the Buddha well fair to say it has been an extremely long day up early and had breakfast in the hotel food wasn't bad but a young boy found my pronunciation of Ka fei which you can guess is coffee to be hilarious and just ran back to his family repeating the word without actually telling me which button to press so hot milk it was never mind.



I took the local bus very simply to the scenic area and when I saw the queue for tickets i winced one thing i have noticed here is that people do not know how to queue it doesn't matter that you can clearly see them pushing in they just pretend you are not there. Not that i can blame them as the queue was huge but hell i had to stand in it why should you.



Within the Buddha scenic area there is a number of beautiful temples and gardens all dedicated to the Buddhist history and even some tombs to visit. There are lots and lots of stairs so for about the first hour i did the Chinese shuffle along with the rest of the crowd before we got to the top and were able to disperse a little. Being a little higher up you get to see right out across the river and the city on the opposite side it really is a beautiful site very photogenic.



To the main attraction, you could see the top of the Buddha's head as soon as you came to the top of the stairs it really is huge. There are two viewing areas one on each side of the hide from the overlooking mountainside, i managed to get a few good pictures but not without having to climb over people and move people out of the picture. I have tried to be polite here so much and will happily wait my turn to see something or for my few mins to take pictures but unless you act how they do they will never let you in its a shame really as individually i have found them to be very caring and helpful people but put them in a crowd with something to photograph and you better turn in to he-man to get through. At the top area there was another queue and this one was impressive it swung right the way around the mountain top and they had big creeps calling out sections of numbers like when your flight is called in the airport seats 1-10, not that anyone pays attention in that or this scenario. The queue was to be able to walk down the side of the cliff face along side the buddha taking what they call the 9 turns and then you are able to take pictures at the bottom (I decided to skip this) I wandered through all of the sites at the park taking lots of photographs then just before the south exit they tried to sell me another ticket to go in to a separate area with a different buddha and more sites to see as the entrance see was the same as the one i had already paid and only a little more than what i was planning on paying for the boat i decided again to skip.



I left the park via south exit and as i had turned down the hiring of a bike or car i began walking back to the north entrance around the outside, it was a little bit of a hike but not overly unpleasant. I made my way back up to the dock area that i had seen passing by on the bus in the morning and queued again for a short boat ride that would take me to the foot of the buddha I think i queued for about an hour or so and the woman in front of me clearly was not watching her children whilst they repeatedly fell over and played in the dirt. But it was worth it in the end some amazing pictures of the Buddha despite my iPhone once again deciding it wanted to go to sleep think a new battery is going to be needed soon its probably sick of me taking pictures.



After the boat i started walking up to where the tourist centre was as i had seen a few buildings around there and it had looked relatively busy on the way in. I was right lots of food stalls and people selling all different kinds of charms and trinkets a little overpriced though. I seen a nice little stall selling baozi which are like bread dumplings and they are super nice so i bought some of those for lunch. I walked to the top of the scenic area before turning around to head back the bus station. Well all i can say there is that was a complete waste of time we waited and waited and finally a buss came and it was already full like a tin of sardines i thought I'm going to be here a while so decided to walk instead. At first i told myself i would just walk to the bus stop where i had changed lines in the morning as it was only 3 stops away but i continued walking as i seen a place called Orlando shopping centre on the map and thought hey that couldn't sound more American lets check it out how wrong i was tucked away in a shifty little side street and completely shuttered up not even open after all that bah. No point in trying to find a bus at the point so i continued walking and by the time i got back to the hotel i can say i walked over 18,000 steps today proud and sore.



Tucked up in my double bed now for a change from bunk beds writing my story tomorrow I'm heading to Emeishan to climb a mountain but not before checking out the hot springs 😊

---

Comments

[Jacquie webb]

Travelling princess
One word gem about yr blogs....amazing! X