Big Buddha

Well, we're four days behind on writing- we filled the previous diary in no time at all and have only just bought a new one, so lots to catch up on! Going back to the 27th, we were having a mighty good rest after our huge mountain trek and a half and lazing around is sure what we did. After sleeping tons and then getting breakfast we thought we'd check out Baguo village, where we'd been staying in but not had a chance to look around yet. It wasn't that special, every shop is just the exact duplicate of another, so nothing really draws you in, and when you do venture into one you'll often get followed around the shop by an over enthusiastic sales person. You dare not point at anything because they dive right in and try to make you spend, it really is very off-putting.

We took a walk through a park that looked half finished and just walked where the paths and roads took us, which ended up being the Emei university grounds. After that we headed to the most interesting thing worth seeing today- the Emei museum. It was free to walk around and half of it was dedicated to Mount Emei and its World Heriatge Status (there are over 800 of them, and Laura and I want to see them all before we pass it!) and the other half was more to do with the history of martial arts which is prevelant in the area. It made a pleasan days worth of things to do and not too strenuous on the legs.

We had another night's great sleep and woke for yet another big breakfast, so big that I had to eat Laura's too! She had scrambled eggs on toast, but it was more like huge scrambled sandwiches, so that with my eggs and bacon I was well back in the land of the living.

The 28th was all about getting to Leshan to see 'Dafo' who is the tallest Buddha in the entire world. First we had to to get there... After aking a one hour bus ride from Emei we got dropped off at a station a little way off the centre of town and were approached by people telling us to get on to another bus that would take us into town. Everyone else got on it, including a group of Spanish people from our hostel so we got on. It was only 1 Yuan (10p) and indeed took us through town, but then drove right through and out the otherside to the Buddha we wanted to see later. Everyone on the bus looked confused and asked to be taken back to town- we had all our luggage and had to check in to our hotel. The four people that had come from our previous hotel then became quite useful as one of them spoke Chinese quite well (with his phrase book still in hand mind). The Spaniards, two guys and two girls, had pretended not to know how to speak English when a bunch of Irish travellers had tried to chat to them at the rpevious hostel, and we weren't too sure how they would be with us, but they were damned helpful. After a mindnumbing conversation with a Chinese taxi driver who refused to take u to our hotel and wanted to take us to another (he must have been getting damned good commission!) we all got into a squished 6 seater taxi back into town.

The taxi pulled up at the hotel we asked for but things didn't look right- there was nothing saying hotel and everything was written in Chinese characters- all the places we had stayed in before had the Pinyin version for European guests displayed. We thought he had ignored us and taken us to his hotel anyway, but when I jumped out to check it was all good- I guess we are just starting to get a bit deeper into China now! It was called the Post and Telecommunication Hotel and was our swankiest home yet with it's white furniture and pink upholstery.

It wasn't long here until we shot back outside- the day was flying by after the bus chaos. We walked down to town and tried to find a local ferry that we had read about that would take us right passed the Great Buddha carved into the cliffside of the Dadu river. From the water we were told we would really understand the scale of it- 71m high with ears 7m long and toes 8.5m long (an unfortunate chap, having toes larger than his ears!) It seemed the ferry did not run anymore, and not wanting to take a tourist boat we took a bus to the spot we were dropped off earlier that day.

We entered a giant park to get there first and were greated by another giant Buddha carved into the mountain side lying down. Following that there were tons more, slightly smaller, but still mighty impressive ones as we passed through caves and up ridiculous steps that were steep, slippery, and very high. We prayed we didn't have to come back down them for Laura's vertigo issues! The top led us around for ages and ages, up and down more step in the blazing heat to an area where it seemed even the Chinese couldn't take the heat anymore and were hiding in the shade drinking. We joined them and within about a minute were joined by kids who where on a school outing asking all the usual questions. This led to curious Chinese men who had been slyly looking on to come over. All the attention was really on Laura and she was being told how beautiful she is. I got a bit of attention and one kid's father who was interested in me said I looked like a famous actor.

After pumping up Laura's ego for 20 minutes we finally made it to what we had come for, and boy was he big! The Grand Buddha had been built over 90 years, started by a monk named Haitong in 713 AD and it was hoped the Buddha would calm the fast moving currents of the Dadu River for the boatmen there. Amazingly it actually worked- all the slit that was produced was distrubuted in the river and the currents remain calmer to this day! After taking tons of pictures we realised we weren't going to capture its full scale on camera, so you'll have to come and see it for yourselves!

We had sweated bucket loads again but carried on to the Mahoya Tombs Museum, a small but quite atmospheric place where you enter tiny caves lit up with tombs at the end, covered in interesting carvings of black dragins and white tigers who are meant to protect the dead from evil ghosts, but unfortunately not tomb raiders it seems!

Our last stop of the day was another giant walk to the Wuyou Temple which was just closing, but we had enough time to enjoy it's amazing views over the river as the sun was starting to come down. We left and headed towards the river, hoping we might be able to get the local ferry back now the touts were out of the way, but were greated with blank faces and ointed back up the mountain. We were knackered so this wasn't the best result, though as we pushed back up we were stopped by a lady who pointed us back down the mountain- ohohoohoh! After going all the way back down again and turning in the opposite direction at the bottom we found a pretty run down but very friendly area and eventually a bus stop that took us back for another well earned sleep!