World's Biggest Carved Buddha

Wednesday, June 25, 2008--Chendgu (Continued)

Language is sometimes a problem here. I am surprised how many Chinese now speak English and how many of them seem to speak it really well. But that group consists strictly of students and recent former students. Anyone else, and there tends to be a problem. I had two problems today:

1. When I returned to my room, the maid had not finished her work. She had taken one of the hand towels and had not replaced it. She was probably interrupted and forgot. But I am checking out tomorrow. Here, they check the rooms and have a price list to replace anything missing. I went downstairs to try to explain the towel situation. It just wasn't working. The lady at the desk finally called someone who supposedly speaks English, but I still wasn't sure she understood. Now I will worry tonight about their expecting me to pay for a towel I haven't taken.

2. Ordering food is consistently a problem. There are very few places with an English menu, because tourism just isn't big enough to support the need. I usually rely on printed picture menus or pointing to what someone else has. Tonight, I could not tell much from the pictures. And no one was eating anything that I could tell for sure what it was. I just opened my guidebook food pages and pointed to all the pork dishes listed in Chinese to see if they had any of them. They had one, so that is what I ordered.

The food was actually good. It was a huge platter. What I got was pork with vegetables and rice cakes. There was a nice sauce filled with small pieces of pork, lots of different kinds of vegetables, and pices of rice cakes. I managed to eat 90% of it even if it was so much food. But it wasn't a hot and spicy Sichuan dish; my missed my opportunity for that tonight.

Thursday, June 26, 2008--Chengdu to Leshan

I was up early today. I entered for breakfast just when they opened. And it was the best breakfast I have had here in China. The past two days, they have brought a plate of food, but today there were enough people that they set out a buffet. It had everything they have been serving, but it also had more. There were scrambled eggs with tomatoes, a spicy pork dish with vegetables, cake, etc. Ummm. I had all that with the usual steamed meat-filled buns, boiled egg, banana-leaf wrapped rice cake (sticky dark brown mixture), and warm milk.

I walked to the bus station. It only took about 30 minutes. And I caught a bus for Leshan at 9:00. It was a plush bus that included a movie and free bottles of water. A young woman who spoke English very well sat across the aisle from me. She graduated from the university in Leshan and now has a job with Google. We visited for quite a while. Then she helped make sure I went the right direction when we got to town.

Leshan is known mainly for one thing: The world's largest Buddha statue carved into a mountainside. It wasn't until the Taliban blew up the two statues in Afghanistan. And even though one of those as been rebuilt, it is not original and is not carved. The one here is at the confluence of two rivers. It took 90 years to carve it. Some of its dimensions: 71 m (about 75 yards) high. Ears that are 7 m long (over 7 yards). A toe that is 8.5 meters (about 9 yards) long. My guidebook says, "You could picnic on the nail of his big toe."

I considered taking one of the local ferries that passes by the statue, but my guidebook didn't give enough information about catching them. Also, they didn't give the key words in Chinese spelling for me to show to people. So I went the expensive way--on the $7.50 tour boat that stays there for 10 minutes. Of course, they also try to push you to have professional photos made that you pay extra for! I got some good photos with my camera, I think.

It has sprinkled occasionally today and has been cloudy all day. But rain has never come. I will be up early again tomorrow to catch a bus to Chongqing. That's a 5-6 hour trip, so tomorrow will not be the best of days. But I have a reservation at a 4-star hotel for the next two nights. That should help.