14 The Leshan Giant Buddha

Farms along the way

Today was a big day, it started a very long drive through the Sichuan countryside to visit to what is noted to be the tallest Buddha statue in the world. Being winter there were no blue skies, but then how much of it is also cause by pollution that seems to plague China.

Toll gates Chinese style

Leshan is a pretty little town on the banks of the Minjiang river. With a mix of old and architecture.

Before arriving we were given a warning for something, but it kind of got lost in translation, or maybe I was not listening properly.

Once at Leshan we boarded a small boat to for the short journey across the river to see this great Chinese wonder....  ahh the penny dropped, now I remember what the warning was....

This is what we should have seen                    and this is what we saw!

 Being the off season the Big Buddha was under maintenance.

The Leshan Buddha was the brain child of a Chinese Monk called Hiatong.  As the Buddha looked out to the confluence of the rivers Min and Dudu, it would calm their turbulent waters which plagued the ships that travelled down.  Little did he realise as fate would have it, the large amount of rubble carved from the rock face and deposited in the river would do just that by altering the currents.

From the water you could see other carvings within the rock face as well as the stair case that you can climb to enjoy the views from up above.

It is now 12 months later and I realised how significant seeing this was.

We took the grandchildren to see the movie "Abominable" and who should star in it... but Leshan himself!!