Since I was a little boy I have wanted to see the Leshan Giant Buddha. My brother gave me a lovely book about some of the worlds most sacred places and this place had always been something I had hoped to see. So after the morning with the pandas our bus then took us to the town of Leshan, population 6.5 million! It was carved into the cliff between the years 713 and 803.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leshan_Giant_Buddha
The Giant Buddha – almost.
By the time we got there and had a big Sichuan lunch (yum), we found out that the boat we were going to take wasn’t running because the water was too high. As a result the only way to see the whole Buddha was to line up so that you may hike down 80 metres and see it bit by bit as you went down. When we got to the queue it was past the sign that said ‘2 hour wait’. Skye and I thought we would go anyway but then noticed the line was even longer than that. A German couple and a Japanese woman decided to give it a go anyway. We decided against and were very happy as it was super hot. The Germans and the Japanese lady were 3 hours just to get to the top of the staircase….they reported it was lots of pushing and shoving, everyone smoking and they ran out of water! Despite me wanting to see this for years, I was remarkably ok with only seeing it from the top….instead we checked out the temples, had ice cream and wandered around….
