Advertisement
Published: February 17th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Hi,
I arrived in Delhi about a week ago via Hong Kong, which was amazing. I had about 12 hours of layover in Hong Kong, so I left the airport and went exploring. Originally, I was just going to wander around but somehow I found out about the "Big Buddha" and decided to make my way there. Hong Kong was a British ruled island, just off of mainland China, up until about twenty years ago when it was given back to China. Supposedly, lots of people spoke english, but in reality, lots of people spoke one or two words of english. It was enough to find my way to the Big Buddha, which is a bronze, building size buddha sitting on top of a mountain, and it houses the Pong Li monastery. I arrived early, on the bus with all the workers of the complex, and it was so peaceful and quiet.
Since I was coming to India (which was supposed to be warm...but wasn't for the first few days), all I had was a light pair of trousers, a long sleeve shirt and flip flops. When I arrived at the monastery, it was probably 45 degrees out and misty.
Everyone had jackets on and some had hats and they all thought I was a total wierdo for wearing flip flops. Luckily, I also had a red wool/possum shawl with me that I wrapped in very creative ways to keep me warm and protected from the chilly wind as I walked around the fairly large complex (it kept me from becoming hypothermic but I wouldn't say I was ever very comfortable). This place is a very big tourist attraction and includes the Big Buddha, which you climb up a huge staircase to reach, and a few walks through the woods and out onto some hills. There is also this beautiful display of the Prajna Paramita ("discourse on the perfection of wisdom"), also called the Heart Sutra. This is basically one of buddha's teachings on how he reached enlightenment and discusses the attainment of perfect understanding. It was carved on these tree-trunk sized wooden panels and they were standing in a huge figure eight on the side of a hill. The valley that they overlooked was foggy but beautiful in that mysterious looking way.
The complex also contained several temples with HUGE gold buddhas and various dieties and god-statues. The
paintings and carvings were unreal. The outside of one temple had concrete pillars carved into dragons and all of the walls were carved with various story-pictures. So much red, gold, and green, so many carvings, flowers and smells and smoke from the incense...it was probably one of the most powerful experiences I have had in a really long time. Mostly, it was Chinese tourists who are buddhists and so many of them were lighting incense and making prayers for their ancestors and family. There were maybe 7-10 places where you could light off incense and one place in particular was burning 3 incense sticks that were each the size of a building pillar. When I climbed the big buddha, I bought a ticket for lunch in the lower monastery which allowed me entrance into the big buddha statue where there was a museum. It was wild, there were sutras painted in BLOOD, but they were maybe 1000-1500 years old so they were a bit faded. There were paintings and pictures of various teachings and sutras and it was all very powerful. At the top-most part there was a viewing place where a piece of the buddha's bone is held in
a sacred glass container.
I eventually made my way through it all, trying to just be there and experience it instead of being overwhelmed with the desire to take pictures. Ha ha, its funny how you can get so wrapped up in "capturing the moment" that you aren't really experiencing anything at all. So I had to just not take pictures after awhile, plus there was so much to see that I was hard to capture it all. I then ate lunch at the monastery, and was probably one of THREE white people in the whole room of at least 100 or more. I was put at my own separate table and recieved quite a few stares, smiles and finger pointings. But the food was delicious and filling and being flooded in the sounds of Cantonese being spoken all around me was fun.
Eventually I made my way back to the airport and onto my flight to India. I will post pictures soon and update more about India in a few days. I got a terrible stomach bug yesterday and am feeling weak so I need to head back home now. Its also a little challenging to use
the internet here because I have been so busy and am still a little disoriented by everything. India is wild, its so wild that I won't be able to explain it properly, but at the same time, I feel like I have been here my whole life. Its kind of a wierd juxtaposition.
Love you all, starting to get a little homesick now : )..............sarah
Advertisement
Tot: 0.065s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0418s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
camie
non-member comment
thats exciting
thats quite exciting only the blood part creeps me out a wee bit... hope ur having fun! yay