09: The Leshan Giant Buddha & Huanglongxi

Down to breakfast at seven o’clock, plenty of choice here at the Tibet Hotel, including one or two unusual Tibetan items, like sweet yak tea and strange little rock hard biscuits.

It’s a full day today, mainly due to the fact that we have two longish coach journeys. There are two items on the itinerary, first we have the long trip out to Leshan to see the 71 metre high Giant Buddha (Da Fo) rock carving, followed after lunch

with a visit to Huanglongxi, a 1700 year old restored town that’s now very much within the outskirts of Chengdu.

After a two and a half hour coach journey, punctuated by two very welcome comfort breaks, we arrived at the town of Leshan, home of the world famous Giant Buddha. It’s the largest stone-carved Buddhist statue in the world, and stands at the confluence of the Min & Dadu rivers; we were fortunate that we were being taken out to the statue by boat, as from the river is easily the best way to view this amazing monument. It can be visited by foot, but as it’s cut into the limestone cliff overlooking the wide confluence, you have to climb down very narrow winding steps, that are cut into the limestone, to the foot of the statue, and then climb the narrow winding steps on the other side back up to the top of

the cliff. This must be a very restricted view as you’re so close at its base. Our view from the river was stunning, and the boats cruise past the statue and turn back immediately where they hold station in front of it, giving us more than enough time to take in this amazing structure, as well as get our photos and videoing done. Either side of the Buddha at the front of the cliff are two smaller rock carved statues, and that brought to mind our Egyptian visit to Abu Simbel when we rounded the bend in the river and Da Fo came into view!

Once we were back on terra firma it was back on the coach for a very short drive along the course of the river to the restaurant for our lunch. It was same format as all the others, so there's a definite trend developing here...!!! Again there were some very nice choices, and with no scary options,

including a whole oven baked river perch in a soy sauce like dressing... and very nice it was to!

We now had the same coach journey back to Chengdu, and I think I must have dozed off for a while; as it seemed like it was after no time at all that we were pulling up at our next place of interest.

The next stop on the itinerary was the 1700 year old town of Huanglongxi, restored to retain its old world charm; its now been swallowed up within the outskirts of Chengdu. There are food kiosks of every size, selling the strangest of things, most of which certainly look like they shouldn’t be for human consumption. Many upmarket stores and lots of craft kiosks, many of which had artisans creating their product before our

very eyes! Our hunter gatherer skills came to the fore when we sniffed out a Starbucks near the entrance, and here Elaine enjoyed a Flat White, with me lapping up a Latte complete with a vanilla syrup flavoured shot... hmm hmmmm...!!!

After Huanglongxi it was back to the hotel for an hour or so of relaxing before getting dressed up and walking along to the restaurant that we ate at last night for dinner. We managed to get the right group around the table tonight, clockwise: Paul & Sharon, Elizabeth, Carol & David, Lynne & Amber, Elaine and last, but by no means least, myself. This made for a much more enjoyable eating experience, and hopefully we'll all be able to do this again at our remaining meals.

After dinner all but three of us are going to the theatre to see

the world renowned legend of rapid mask changing show! Or in the theatre’s own words: “Fu Rong Guo Cui - Legend of Face Changing, Warmly Welcomes Chinese and Foreign Guests”. This was seventy-five minutes of Chinese culture theatre, each act was introduced by a female compare in both Chinese and then English, which was nice and at least gave us some hope of understanding the deep and meaningful Chinese love story. As Max would say, it was an experience, and have to say the face changing was very clever, they even had a puppet that performed the face changing!

It was only a fifteen minute ride back to the hotel, so by nine-thirty we were already getting packed, as this was our last night at the delightful Tibet Hotel. Not too early a start tomorrow, so no need for us to rush around too much.