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.

Xian and the Terracotta Warriors

Tang Dynasty Music and Dance Show

This show was enjoyable with lots of music and dancing and lots of hand waving with long sleeves!!! P wanted to see acrobatic show in Bejing but decided see that when we do around the world clokwise!!!

Terracotta Warrior Army
8th wonder of the world according to former President Clinton and I have to agree with him simply because what still lies undiscoverd around this vast area buried deep beneath the earth.The Warriors were re-discovered in 1974(by a farmer digging a well),having been buried for over 2000 years.All facing East in battle formation with weapons,complete with horses and chariots to guard the tomb of the emperor Shi Haung Di and to protect his journeyto the after life.Thousands still remain buried with the tomb,7000 are discovered and on view,all are life size and modelled on each warrior of his vast army at the time,no two faces are alike.Its simply awsome site!!!

Another view of Xian City Wall
Xian is an Imperial city with bucket load of history ,old city enclosed by fabulous wall (exact square) 24km built during Tang dynasty with new city built outside the wall,it has some of the best street food in China. It has fascinating Muslim quarter with Great Mosque and street food!!! There are many other historical site in and around Xian and its mighty fabulous city with lots of charm.

Our hostel located by the City Wall
Great hostel ,8 pound a night,double room ensuite,absolute luxury for us backpackers!!! but a bit noisy at night.Young American owner form Texas very charming and full of travelling knowledge.Met couple of lager swinging Koreans doctors and shared few beers with them as one does.P n V learnt to make Dunplings and we went to a dumpling party!!!

Bicycle ride on top of Xian City Wall

Everybody in China seems to owns a bike so we decided to hire some and cycled around on top of the City Wall and it was great fun-the wall is brick built 25 feet wide and 40 feet high and very long!!!! we bumped in to lots of joggers late on as it was half a marathon day on the wall. The wall and cycle ride was worth all the cycling pain!!!

Bell Tower at Xian at night

In China you see lots of city wall ,temples,pagodas and TOWERS ,they are fantastic to look at and have great views form the top over the cities and all have fantastic lights by night.All cities in China are great on neon lights and can give Las Vegas run for their money.(In China one new power station opens every week and are all coal fired and thus China has 7 top polluted cities in the world-POLLUTION is big problem in China-most cities are covered in fog all day and night and in some cities blue sky is at premium!!!-the other thing you notice is lack of any wildlife what so ever-I mean you never see any birds or insects or dogs or rabbits just nothing except people-and in China anything that moves is a delicasy and may be that explains lack of wildlife)

Beijing pics...

Gate of Heavenly Peace at Tianenmen Square

Entrance to the Forbidden City spoiled by hanging Mao's pics. Dipak's in Tianenmen Square at the moment, protesting to have it taken down!

The Marble Boat at Summer Palace

This was built by the Qing dynasty to show that they are unsinkable. But guess what happened to them?

Kunming Lake at Summer Palace
Marble rainbow bridge

The loooooong corridor at Summer Palace
750 metres long containing 35,000 paintings

Ringing the bell at Lama Temple

Dipak felt left out, but I had to explain sinners weren't allowed to ring the bell

The Lama Temple - Beijing

The biggest Buddhist temple outside Tibet

Kung Fu fighting in Beijing
She beat the hell out of me! Bruce Lee eat yer heartout

Inside the Forbidden City

Take a guess at which lion is male and which is female? The winner gets a free ticket to Japan to join us (hey, I'm not sure whether that's the booby prize!)

The Great Wall of China
A climb of almost 4,000 steps, hard work when it's 35 degrees! An amazing jawdropping view though. Picture is decieving as the steps go on forever.

Our first meal in China at the Far East International Youth Hostel

A few piccies at last!

For some strange reason, everything on the blogger site was coming up in Chinese (maybe being in China has something to do with it!), finally found someone to translate how to change the language settings and add some pics, so here goes...

Leaving the UK with our modest luggage!

Arrived in China!

NI HAO from us all!!!!
We've been in China for a week now, weather's really hot. Visited Beijing and climbed the Great Wall (tiring!), been to the Forbidden City, Summer Palace which was really beautiful and the Ming Tombs, Lama Temple and Tianenman Square. Tried lots of veggie chinese cuisine as well as pizza n chips! Experienced a lovely traditional tea ceremony and saw a fantastic Kung Fu show. Hope to try and put a couple of pics up soon, especially one of Dipak and Vedanta practising their Kung Fu on the street (well what else would you expect of them!)
Just had a 13 hour overnight train ride to Xi'an, where we'll be spending the next few days.
Above are PRITTIs thoughts !!! hey now read DIPAKs!! P uses perfect gramer with corect spelin and she just had a go at me for my lack of CHINGLISH education!! China has me surprised and gob smacked,its an AWSOME country with fantastic people and the food n beer is so cheap ! 20p a beer ! 4 quid for full breakfast for 3 n 10 quid for buffet dinner for 3!!!!!!! its clean n charming nation!! I think CHINI CHINI BHAI BHAI(those historians amongst you) is true cause they love THIS 3 INDIANS and they keep looking at us with warm smile n make us feel like CELEBRITIES!!!! The hostels are amazingly beautiful with loads of characters with courtyards full of travellers passing on their tales to each other! met 65 year old woman called ANGEL from HAWAII travelling alone!!! one gutsy woman with no fear and she even gave us her home number in case we decide to go VOLCANO chasing in HAWAII !!! another BLACK woman(40ish) from CANADA travelling alone for 6 months ,had her backpack mislaid by bus company and was left with what she was wearing ! they found her bag after 6 days!! fellow travellers helped her out for 6 days!!! there seems to be great frindships between all travellers staying in hostels!!! to be honest I feel I have been wasting my dosh on previous 5 star travels cause in 5 star place u c nothin! hear nothin! and feel nothin!
KUNG FU show was superb it was like watching 10 BRUCE LEES on stage ! I am sure BRUCE was on stage and by the way we also spotted ELVIS!!!!
TIANEMEN SQUARE(TS)!!!!! biggest square in the world full of history and spilled blood on each slab(by the way 4 the WINDIES TOUR friends now I am a full blown VEGETARIAN!!! some of you are thinking NOT AGAIN!!!!!) .For all you historian , one can not ride a bicycle on TS but fully loaded TANKS with side winder MISSILES are ok(TS massacre in late 80s).RED GURDS are mean looking and have had couple of runnin with them alreday but nothin serious.
FORBIDDEN CITY is out of this world but nothing beats SUMMER PALACE outside BEIJING!!! this palace contains a corridor thats over 700 meters long and has a big boat(40ft) made from MARBLE and it floats in the water, palace is full of temples and pagodas and we all loved it!!!
Climbed THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA!!! I got to the top with over 3000 steps(took 75 mins to get to top and 40 mins to come down) P n V turned back from half way as V was tires SO SAYS P!!!! but they both did really well(all those hours spent in GYM came in handy for me) and it is has amazing views from top!!! from top one can see the wall snaking away in to misty mountains as far as your eye can see!! it is 4000 miles long but WHY DID THEY BUILD THE DAMN THING!! cause every TOM DICK m ARRY with a toy gun just jumped over the wall and invaded China anyway for centuries includin that fellow GENGIS KHAN!!!! from OF all places MONGOLIA!!!
By the way PM in China they have re-written the history books as THE WALL is not visible from space or MOON and this was confirmed by Chinese astronots(????) in 1998!!! to be honest with you there are lots of things they will need to re-write if communism ever collapses( ITS NOT THAT I CANT SPELL, ITS THIS CHEAP CHINESE COMPUTER) One fact is being here it does not feel as though you are in a COMMI country , people seems to be going about their business just like back home ,the only difference being they cant get to vote every 4 years!!! does voting make you feel free???? It sure does to me as I told one Chinese man!!!!(to those food lovers-POT NOODLE is big in China-every one seems to carry one!!)
Going backto TS----Chairman MAOs big picturs hangs at one end of TS(as u see on telly ) -they say during his time each family at least lost one person ( I mean killed) and they still hang his pix there!!! casuse you dont see his picture any where else at all. and his PICKLED body still on view for public to SEE in middle of TS!!!! They are going to remove his body during OLYMPIC 08 from TS so that it makes CHINA look modern rather than 3rd world!!!! WHY???
Talking about OLYMPICS 08 , we went to see OLYMPIC PARK and THE STADIUM and its TRULLY AWSOME !! its in a shape of a BIRD NEST!!!( Wembley it ur heart out!!) wait till you see it next year on telly and SWIMMING POOL is like made up of lots of BUBBLES!!! Its amazing!!! for those architectes(???) amongsts you its a Norman Foster design!!
Loads of stories to tell you but I have got to go and see TERRACOTTA WARRIORS now so its buy buy(????) from us all till next time!
Almost forgot we left Beijing on 15th pm via train-13 hour sleeper train to XIAN!!! and it was a great ride with lots stories to tell but hey I am on holiday n I need another beer so I got to go

As they say here ZAIJAN