Blogs from Leshan, Sichuan, China, Asia - page 3

Photos: ....my original plan to visit Miss Piggy for her wedding floundered when either I or she (or both) mixed up the dates. It's on March 8th, not February 8th. After two days on the farm & a few more in Guiyang plus a trip to the Huangguoshu Falls, documented in last week's newsletter, it's time to make a move. Thoughts of warmer weather & sunkissed beaches have been abandoned. Southern & central China are just starting to thaw out from some of the heaviest snowfalls for years..... …..Guilin, about 500km east? Su Yin Hui (Suzy), the English teacher whose wedding I attended a few months ago, will be there with her husband. It apparently requires changing trains halfway. Kunming, about the same distance east, close to some beautiful scenic spots. Maybe Chengdu, north of Guiyang ... read more

Sat 30 / 10 Chengdu to Leshan With the late Fri it was only a short nights as I awoke to resolve computer technology and get housekeeping in for some maintenance before our delayed wake up call at 09:00 for a pack and go by 11:00 The morning must have been planned around our tiredness as we had a short bus hop to the other end of town for an hour walk around the old town area - read modernisation of the old town in the old format for tourist A short stop over at the Government sponsored business of Jin Long Jewerllry presented great temptation It was a 2hr leisurely bus ride to the Baxiandong dock at Lesian for a short boat ride to view the giant Buddha Returning to shore our bus contiued to ... read more

A day trip from Chengdu... On a misty morning, we left our Chengdu hostel and got a local bus to the "tourist distribution centre" (the literal translation of the long distance bus station!). We took a two hour bus trip south to a place called Leshan, famous for being home to the largest outdoor Buddha in the world, and another UNESCO site. Upon arrival at Leshan, we took one more bus to the Buddha park/National park area, located across the river. As we entered the park, there was a 170m long stone buddha carved into the rock face, but I reckon it was a cheat because I could only see his head and his feet and the rest of him was conveniently overgrown and covered in trees! The Buddha park was mainly filled with replicas of ... read more

Hello all, Nothing new to report other than that I went to LeShan last week with a friend to see the largest Buddha effigy on the planet last weekend. Read more here! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leshan_Giant_Buddha My thoughts aren't very collected at the moment, so I don't have much to say other than we met some fascinating people, saw some temples more personally inspiring than the main attraction, and that the Big Buddha was, despite the tourists, numinous. See more here! http://s294.photobucket.com/albums/mm93/sterlingsin/Chengdu2009/LeShan/ Actually, you know what? Let's try to collect these thoughts now. That was one damn big Buddha. Over 200 feet tall, you could completely fit inside its ear standing up. The day we went was perhaps one of the least crowded days of the year to go, luckily, and the weather held up nicely for this time ... read more

On October 5th we took a day trip from Chengdu to Leshan mainly to see the Grand Buddha, which is the biggest buddha carving in the world. It is 71 meters tall and 17 meters wide. The bus ride to Leshan was very straight forward, but getting to the grand buddha once we got to leshan was more difficult. From the lonely planet we knew we should ride bus 13, but it didn't say which direction to take it, and also the bus station was on the wrong spot in the map. So when we first got on the bus, I was checking my compass and thought we were headed the wrong direction, so we got off the bus. Only once we started asking people on the street did we find out that we were on ... read more