Leshan

Hello everyone, this post is a roundup of our day trip to the city Leshan. This town is famous for it’s many old Buddhist statues, especially the biggest Buddha in the world!

From Chengdu to Leshan it took us about 90 minutes with a van. We had bought tickets for a coach, but strangely enough we were guided to a small van, apparently not many people wanted to go there. This was most welcome! As a rule of thumb, less tourists usually translates into a nicer experience.

The DaFo scenic area consists of a huge park situated on a mountainous forest area near the river, and the forest was full of caves, statues and temples. Especially nice was the tranquillity of the area, not much noise from cars or people found its way up the slopes. I selected the best pictures and will not write much, I think this can convey the beauty of this area far better than I could with words.

(This time all pictures are clickable again, to see the bigger versions.)

A cute Chinese boy wanted to take a picture with me (this happens to us three all the time), so I asked Rebeka to take one as well.

It was amazing to walk up and down through the jungle-like area, mainly on stairs.

After having walked a while, one would encounter another nice building or a statue.

I felt like an explorer, especially because there were not many other people. Quite unusual for famous Chinese sightseeing spots, we were lucky with the day we picked.

After having strolled through the forest for a while, we came to the river. An amazing sight.

This small pavilion used to be part of a defensive line along the coast. I loved it.

And then we arrived at the main attraction. The big Buddha. The first picture is the staircase that you have to descend.

An amazing sight. Carved into the riverside cliffs, this Buddha, measuring 71 metres, is the largest in the world.

Originally it was constructed to calm the waters of the river. After it’s completion, the inhabitants noticed that the river was indeed much calmer and safer to use for transport, and thanked the merciful Buddha. It is speculated that the massive amount of rocks that were dumped in the river during construction altered the currents.

I really like this picture, the monk was wandering around and I was lucky to capture it.

Please observe the tiny woman dressed in red to the right of his forehead. This gives you an idea of his gargantuan proportions.

One of the nicest statues there, in my humble opinion.

We found a cannon! A real cannon! The first I have seen in China so far, and it reminded me of Zeeland. (Southern Dutch Coast – lots of cannons there). A bit further we found a bridge that crossed over to the island which you can see in the pictures with that riverside pavilion.

Very pretty indeed. To get there one had to cross an old fishermen’s village, which was transformed into a bunch of souvenir shops and tourist restaurants.

While sitting in the bus back, exhausted from the long walks and the many stairs, I felt really happy and fulfilled. Because of the few other tourists and especially the few changes to the old buildings and statues, this area felt like really experiencing a part of Chinese history. More so than many other spots, that lost part of their charm through extensive refurbishments.

Greetings,