Pandamonium and supersized relics
Trip Start
Dec 28, 2005
1
9
13
Trip End
Ongoing
Chengdu and Leshan, China
Monday, April 3, 2006
A day trip away at Leshan is the Big Buddha (aka Dafo), at 71m it was carved from the cliff face itself over a 90 year period. I harking from the land of the roadside "big things" I heeded the call of the world's largest (and least imaginatively named) Buddha. We do the obligatory photos from all angles from the steep steps down beside. Had a giggle at patches of fuzzy green body hair and ear wax in the form of moss. To give some size perspective, the toes are higher than I am tall. Picturesque surrounding lush gardens/semi-forest with Uluru-red soil.
But unfortunately an otherwise fantastic day was marred by the absolute sh*tfight we had getting there and away. Every step of the way we had people attempting to mislead for the purpose of thereby extracting money from us. eg: a local old woman assuring us that it was a good hours' walk to the entrance, but wait, she can arrange a cheap local-price rickshaw (for a cut I'm sure) for the resulting actual 450m - grr! The clincher was the bus ride home. We were accosted by a fairly official-looking tour company offering same price return tickets to the Chengdu terminal. Our eventual drop-off point is gawd knows where with no local transport service. Taxi drivers (I use that term loosely - a "taxi" in China could be anyone with a motorised vehicle of any sort) crowded craned and chortled to see the disoriented distressed foreigners, but refused to budge from their exorbitant prices. It's exhausting/frustrating being treated as a dumb rich foreigner when you are neither.
Methinks it's time for a retreat from civilisation....off to Songpan mountains!
