We travelled from Chengdu to Leshan on a bus (Y50) but it ended up being a mini bus (ah the changes already). Leshan is famous for its Big Buddha Park. This is where the biggest Buddha in the world sits at 77m high facing the river that runs through the city. It cost us Y150 for entrance (approx 15 pound), which proper surprised us but this was the wake up call that China was going to be an expensive country to travel.
The big Buddha Park is huge, with various temples and secluded areas dotted around. It took us about 3 hours to see the whole area, which also included us crossing the river to see a huge temple. The highlight for me was having a number 2 on a disabled toilet. When I finished doing my business, there were controls on the side, which activated an arm from underneath to spray the necessary section clean and if it wasn't in the right area, I could adjust it so it did. Whilst all this was happening, my seat was being warmed. I'm telling you-the disabled people are living it up here.
After visiting the Big Buddha park, we got another minibus to Emei, which is the town at the foot of the Buddhist mountain of Mt Emei. We stayed at Teddy Bear Youth Hostel (Y80), which helped us prepare for our journey up to the mountain. The next morning, we had breakfast and headed out to climb Mt Emei. The hostel gave me walking sticks and crampons because it was snowing up there. After my tough experience to the ABC, I needed any help I could get.
We got a bus to Wannian temple (Y20) and the entrance fee was Y90 for us to walk all the way up the top. The walk took us 8 hours in total (recommended 10 hours) and for most of the walk, we could not see a thing with how foggy and cold it was. We were climbing up steps with snow and ice after about 2 hours, where at one point I slipped and nearly lost my sticks off the edge. There were various temple checkpoints on the way but with the weather being so bad, we could not see a thing. When we got to Jinnu (the tourist area where you can get a bus to), we were only 1 1/2 hours away up the steepest staircase but the difference was that we were above the clouds and could see again. When we got to the golden summit (the top), there was a huge golden Buddha statue, with a golden, silver and bronze temples respectively (ooooo). We waited for sunset and found a place to stay. As you can imagine, it was very cold up there so they provided us with electric blankets (a must) and we endured a night.
We got up to see the sunrise, which was just unbelievable. The sun rose through the clouds slowly as we watched it from above the clouds and saw the other peak on the other side. The pics will do it some justice but you had to be there to really experience it. We walked down to Jinnu, which was even icier and got a bus down to the bottom (Y30-2 hours). With us being slightly ahead of time, we opted to travel to Chongqing, which meant we had to get a bus to Chengdu (Y40) and then a speedy train to Chongqing (Y98- 2 hours). There was such a big difference in the train quality compared to India but the language barrier makes it hard to travel in China, but we're getting there......... bit by bit.
Leshan & Emei Shan Photo Link:
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