Leshan

There’s only one reason to come to Leshan and that’s to see the world’s largest Buddha carved into the cliffs where the Min, Qingyi and Dadu rivers converge. He was put there by a savvy buddhist monk who was trying to calm the waters at the point where the rivers meet cos the locals were scared. All the rocks from the carving were put into the river, thereby slowing its flow and hey presto – a miracle from Buddha. Clever monk. But the rest of the world got a pretty impressive statue to look at, which is never a bad thing.

We had to share him with the crowds (as always in China) which made it a more noisy and hectic experience than a serene and calm one, but boy, what a buddha. As you approach the platform near his head, you can just see the top of his curls – each about the size of a human hand. Go to the edge of the platform and you see his huge head - his ears are at least twice as tall as me. He’s BIG. And he’s sitting down.

There’s a stairway going all the way down one side of the buddha with opportune positions for taking hundreds of pictures. And you do take hundreds because with each few steps down you take, you think you’ve discovered a completely new and unique angle to look at him from. You have plenty of time to think about the angles because there are so many people going down the stairs that the line comes to a complete standstill every few feet. On a good note, there aren’t officials herding everyone forward telling them to get a move on – everyone sees the buddha for as long as they like (and don’t like depending on how much you like being stuck in a queue of people with no way forward or back…) and by the time you get to the bottom, you still haven’t had enough and loiter around for yet more pictures.

There are other little temples and pagodas and Chinesey things in the grounds of the Big Buddha Park, but basically they’re not worth mentioning when you’ve got this colossus to look at.