Dafo, the great stone Buddha at the convergence of the Min, Qingyi, and Dadu rivers in Leshan is largest remaining Buddha statue in the world, now that the Taliban destroyed Afghanistan's giant Buddhas. He stands 71 meters high, and has shoulders as wide as a basketball court. The statue was begun in 713, and work ended in 803 CE. This 90 year long project included a highly sophisticated drainage system that has allowed Dafo to remain in such excellent condition for 1200 years. The statue was built in the hope that the Buddha would calm the river and prevent fatal boating accidents. Oddly enough, it worked, though only because the rubble from the massive carving filled in the river bed, slowing the course of the rivers near Leshan. The project was initiated by a monk called Hai Tong who reportedly gouged out an eye rather than surrender the funds he'd raised to pay for the Buddha to government officials.
I began my path toward enlightenment at 9am at the hostel. There, I, along with Maria (Budapest); Tim (Australia); Marisa (Netherlands); and Claudia (Florida)boarded a hostel minibus out to Leshan. The drive took 3 hours and passed in painfully cramped positions due to the true mini-sized-bus' lack of leg room. We arrived at the site at noon and arranged to meet our driver at 3:30pm for the ride back to town.
First, we took the boat ride past the Buddha. Supposedly, it's possible to get a local fisherman to take you there for 1 yuan and an enhanced experience. When we got there, there was a dearth of fishermen and a queue to buy 50 y tickets for the cruise ship. We joined the queue and made the most of our position at the railing to see the Buddha. The best views are from the river, and he really is an amazing feat. Speaking of feet, I love his toes!!! They are humongous, as tall as a Westerner. So adorable!
After the boat, we decided that we really had to still make the climb down and around and up the other side of the statue. A trip to Leshan wouldn't be complete without that experience. First though, we stopped in one of the temples and took oodles of pictures and continued our quest for enlightenment. I took a step along the path right off of one of the temple steps when a Chinese man shoved me off the stair in his effort to pass me. I must say that though I know he is only an illusion, that illusion has pretty solid elbows, and the illusion of the bruise on my knee reminds me of him every day.
From there, we went toward the set of stone steps carved into the cliff. Oops, I guess that we shouldn't have spent so long in the temple, the line was enormous. We were there at peak time. We got in line at 1:30, and finally got down to the Buddha's feet at 3 o'clock. The intervening time was spent fighting not to be passed by the pushing mass of people behind us. Chinese people in general are very nice. One odd quirk is their disinclination to wait in line. Instead, those who can do it push to the front of the line. They don't give up either. I spent the entire hour and a half fighting the constant shoving of one particular woman. Her favorite trick was to press the entire front of her body against me. Ick! Finally, Marisa came up with the idea of keeping our umbrellas open regardless of whether it was raining or not. These served as effective shields, and we were delivered from queue jumpers.
Eventually, we'd climbed down all of the stairs and were standing between the legs of the Buddha. It was worth it. Barely, but worth it. The wait, the struggle, they were all just bumps along the 8-fold path.
After all of that striving, once we achieved the Buddha, the only thing left was to climb back up the cliff and rendezvous with our driver. It was a little past 3:30, closer to 4, and none of us had eaten since breakfast. We'd been too busy, and then there wasn't anything to eat. We unanimously asked the driver to please stop at a restaurant. He vetoed us. I'm not quite sure why. We returned to the hostel at 6pm without having eaten since 8am. We were ravenous.
Tim declined to join us (he wanted a massage instead), but the rest of us headed out in search of food. When I'd visited the Wenshu monastery the previous day, I'd seen a sign that said the restaurant was open 'til 7:30pm. Lonely Planet disagreed, but I was going with the sign. We got there, found the open side gate with a monk to take our 5 yuan entrance fee. We even found a helpful nun from the nearby Buddhist convent who verified that the restaurant was open. What we didn't find was an open restaurant. They'd closed early that night. I've no clue why, but they did. We spent another hour fruitlessly roaming the district, finding only fancy tourist restaurants specializing in frog legs and pig's feet, or grotty looking noodle shops that none of us felt like patronizing. Eventually, we lucked onto another vegetarian restaurant. Amazing. Of course, the food there was not nearly as delicious as the monastery food, since they were serving just tourists, not a combination of holy monks and tourists. It was still good. We tried a wide variety of dishes and enjoyed about 30% of them. The rest were 'interesting'.
After dinner, on our way out of the restaurant, we encountered a scale. Just for the hell of it, I stepped on. People who've commented that I look thinner in my photos are quite perspicacious. I've lost 15 pounds. Crap! I knew that my clothes were loose, but I had no idea how much weight I'd lost. I've found the perfect weight loss diet. First, ride the TransMongolian train as a vegetarian. Second, hike all day, barely eating anything for weeks on end. Third, regularly eat food that you don't particularly like so that you don't eat very much of it.
I now have permission to eat as much ice cream as I want!
That night, Marisa and I spent some time hanging out, then I needed to pack my bag to be ready for my flight to Guilin. Jasper and Pauline (the people who'd booked the airport shuttle) were booked on the same flight out, so we planned to share a cab in the morning. Funny traveller coinky dink. I had a wonderful time in Chengdu, despite rain and starvation. I recommend it highly if you find yourself in this part of the world. Thank you, Mix Hostel!
You can find my Chengdu/Leshan photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/christine7world/PandasOhAndTheWorldSLargestBuddha and a special addition panda album at http://picasaweb.google.com/christine7world/PandaFlipbook
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