Chengdu

The Grand Buddha at Leshan - Part One

Caved into a cliff face overlooking the Dadu River and Min River in Leshan,is 71m high.Qualifying as the largest Buddha in the world,his ears are 7m long!!! you could picnic on the nail of his big toe!!! the toe itself is 9m long!!! Carved in AD 713. A buiding once sheltered this Grand Buddha,but it was destroyed during a Ming dystany war.Leshan is full of many Hindu gods statues all carved in to cliffs,caves and walls .There is a cliff with 2400 Buddhas carved on it dating back to Han Dystany.

The Grand Buddha at Leshan - Part Two

It is too big for the camera, you'll just have to try and imagine part one and part two together.

Candle Prayers at one of the Buddha Temples at Leshan
One of many great sites in Leshan hills-note the happy Buddha in the back ground-they say if you rub Buddhas belly you will also become happy and if you are bold you are a wise one-but then there are exception to this rule!

Cave of a thousand Buddha's at Leshan, near Chengdu
This really was awe inspiring site as you climb all those very steep steps and on the top are statues of Buddhas every where and you are in the clouds and its straight out of Indiana Jones movie-the smell of thousands of candles and inscense burning was very intoxicating and made you feel great admiration for those who built these places for love of Buddah and dedications and worship of other Gods.

Panda Bears in Chengdu

This picture is not from the wild but from our visit to Chengdu Giant Panda sanctuary-20km from Chengdu.Giant Panda use to roam around these hills freely many years ago but not anymore as there are only 1000 or so left in the wild-and you have to be extremely lucky to see one in the hills-as I said before Chinese like to eat anything that moves and may be that explains the demise of these adorable teddy bears!!! We saw some 30 Giant Pandas and 10 or so Red Pandas(they look like giant red squirrels) They charge 60 quid to have your picture taken holding a baby pandas-we kindly turned it down.On this early morning trip we met lone American Tiger Woods look alike student from Vermont who speaks fluent Japanese-some guy! and it gives one lots of inspiration to enjoy life -also met a giant lone Danish traveller and he really has travelled the world few times-had some great stories to tell-also met some Jews fom Israel but they wont that friendly towards me as I expressed my views on Palestine struggle for liberation and Intifada.The hostel was great again in Chengdu-we were booked in for 3 dormatory beds for 4 to a room but as we entered the room P spotted a biggest spider you have ever seen and with few tears from V we were soon upgraded to double bed ensuite room,thanks to Mr Spider and Vs acting we had a great room for next 4 days at very little cost!!! We have decided to try the same trick elsewhere when we are unhappy with our accomodation!!!

Chengdu is a vast modern city with gateway to Tibetan highways and mighty Yangtze river,but its very polluted with hundreds of factories with big chimneys coughing out toxic pollutant in the air and dumps all toxic waste in to Yangtze.Its still a charming city with loads of Buddah temples and bit of Tibetan culture under surface.Also met interesting travellers and saw my beloved REDS lose against the FASCISTS in Shamrock bar with other REDS travellers and few locals-this disappointment will remain with me until we win the next Champion League Cup.