Adventures in Asia: Leshan, China

With two full days in Chengdu, my plan had been to see the pandas one day and the Leshan Buddha the other, but after having lost Saturday due to lack of cash, I had to do both on Sunday.  So, after yesterday morning with the pandas, I intended to go south to Leshan in the afternoon.

I took the metro to the Chengdu South railway station where I was hoping to catch the 12:40 high speed train to Leshan, which is supposed to take 54 minutes to cover the ~120 kilometres.

This was a collection of buildings near the train station that I found interesting.

I assumed the self-serve railway ticket kiosks would have an English function, but they did not, so I had to improvise with the clerk at the ticket counter.  I managed to communicate what I wanted, but she, equally creative, swiveled her computer monitor to show me that there were zero tickets left for the C6305.  In fact, I was slow, because I simply asked if I could get tickets for the next train, the C6279, and she had to again point at her monitor.  I realized she was actually showing me that there were zero tickets remaining in all classes for the rest of the day's dozen or so trains to Leshan!

I was momentarily very disappointed.  While my flight out of Chengdu today is in the afternoon, there was no way I could fit in a visit to Leshan in the morning, so it was Sunday afternoon or nothing.  I had downloaded the "Travel China" web page on transportation options for Chengdu to Leshan.  While far less desirable, the page indicated that there are regular buses, and I managed to figure out where the bus station was, which was only five or so metro stops from the Chengdu South railway station.

At the bus station I again had challenges with communication, and even figuring out where I could buy tickets, but after twenty minutes or so and the help of this photo, I managed to buy a ticket for the 14:00 bus to Leshan.

I had some time to wait and I had not eaten lunch yet, so I went to a little restaurant next door.  

This was my menu!

The lady had a good laugh when it became obvious that I no idea what the menu said.  I literally just pointed at something and laughed as well.  This delicious and very spicy bowl is what I ended up with for 12 yuan (about $2.50).

The bus ride was unremarkable, except that even without any stops whatsoever, Chengdu to Leshan took just over two hours by bus, versus the 54 minutes by high speed trail (and, by the way, the train ticket is 52 yuan versus 46 yuan for the bus, so barely anymore to save over an hour!).

Once in Leshan, my first concern was making sure I could get back to Chengdu!  

I had managed to figure out how to read "Chengdu" in Chinese, and so using a kiosk I found the schedule for buses from Leshan to Chengdu and photographed it.  The machine would not let me buy the ticket unless I had a Chinese credit card, so I took the photo to the ticket counter and bought a ticket for the 19:00 bus.

With my return trip confirmed, now it was a matter of getting to the Buddha.  I had mapped out the route from the train station, but the Leshan bus station was nowhere near the train station.  Moreover, my GPS was not working on my phone, and I did not have a Leshan map downloaded.  I did not even know which way was north.  

I wasted some time trying to figure it all out, and thankfully I found a bus stop with a map that was somewhat useful. 

I knew the number 8 would take me to the Buddha, but was not sure which direction I had to go, so I got on a number 8, showed the driver a picture of the Buddha, and he indicated I wanted to go the other direction.  So, I crossed the street.

It was now 16:30, and the Buddha closes at 17:30, so I realized I was getting to the point where now I was risking having made it to Leshan without even being able to see the Buddha!

I waved over a cab, deciding I might not have time for the bus.  Consecutive cabbies pulled over for me, only to indicate that for some reason they did not want me or could not take me to the Buddha--I have no idea why.  They were very friendly about it, but despite obviously knowing from my photo where I wanted to go, they both clearly communicated that the trip was not going to happen.

Once again I improvised.  The Buddha itself is a ways out of the city, but an alternative way of seeing it is to catch a boat on the Minjiang River which will take you in front of the statue right above the river.  Piecing together various pieces of information I now knew, I jumped on a number 2 bus which runs along the Dadu River to close to where it joins the Minjiang.  I misjudged when to get off, but it just meant a little bit of a walk along the Dadu.

Although I was trying to rush, the walk along the river was quite nice, and I could even begin to see the massive Buddha way ahead across the Minjiang.

Eventually I rounded the corner to go north along the Minjiang and found where the boat I wanted was.  The final trip of the day was at 17:00, and I was there with a few minutes to spare.  I cut it close, but it was all working out now!

I am a bit of a sucker when it comes to being out on the water, so I was excited to even take the little boat trip!  I had some nice views of the Leshan riverfront as we pulled off.

It only takes a few minutes to cross the river and reach the cliffs out of which the Leshan Buddha was carved.

Viewing the Buddha from a boat has disadvantages--for example, it does not allow you to climb the stairs on either side of the Buddha, or look down from the cliffs above.  One advantage, however, is that you get to see these stone guards on either side of the Buddha, as they are only visible from the river.  While the foliage obviously obscures the statue, I think it is so cool how the plants have grown on these carvings!

I was quite taken aback as the Buddha came into view to see that he was covered with scaffolding!  From way on the other side of the river I could see the green, but assumed it was vines or bushes.

So, in the end, after all this work, I was in front of a partially obscured Leshan Budha.  It was a little bit disappointing, but at least I had made it!

Unbelievably, the Leshan Buddha--the largest Buddha in the world--is more than 1,200 years old and 71 metres tall.  Wikipedia says it is "by far the largest pre-modern statue in the world."  Although I could not see it, a sophisticated drainage system was built in to the statue to minimize erosion.  I read that at first there was also a roof constructed to protect the Buddha as well, but that was destroyed by Mongols in the 1200s.

We floated in front of the Buddha for several minutes, maybe ten total, before heading back.

Back on land, I still had an hour and a half before my bus left, so I started walking towards what I figured would be downtown Leshan, which was also more or less where I needed to go to catch a bus back to the bus station.

I found a cool looking restaurant and sat down to eat some dinner.  This time a friendly man sitting at a table near me knew a very little bit of English, and asked me if I wanted to eat what he was having and I said yes, so he let the lady know that that was what I should be served.  This hot pot was not at all spicy, but it was huge!  I managed to eat most of it.

After dinner I walked some more, enjoying the Leshan Sunday evening.  

I saw no white people the whole time I was in Leshan (and even seemed to get attention just for being me!), but I did find a Walmart!

I was back in Chengdu around 21:00.  

The Chengdu bus station is just a few blocks from my hostel, so I walked back from there.  It had been a long, tiring, full day.

Late this morning I took the metro to the Chengdu airport, whence I will begin my trip back to Canada.  At the airport metro station, I walked by this mural.  No scaffolding on the Buddha in this picture!

Adventures in Asia: Chengdu, China

On Friday I left Laos, flying LPG-DMK, DMK-CTU on Air Asia.  I arrived at my hostel in Chengdu at 03:00, and slept late.

Yesterday was mostly a write-off and a disaster, because I was again having cash issues.  I had tried the ATM at the airport, and even two ATMs nearby the hostel before I checked in, but my MasterCard was rejected in all of them.  The hostel let me check in without paying everything I owed, thankfully.

So first thing once I was awake yesterday, I bought some Skype credit (with my MC, with no difficulty) and called both Visa and MC.  Visa said they would work on getting me emergency cash, but it could take up to 24 hours to hear back from the bank.  Since I could only provide them with my hostel's phone number to call back on, I was more or less confined to the hostel until I heard back.

MC let me know they had blocked my credit card due to too many ATM tries (but how did that add up with being able to use it for Skype credit?).  Unfortunately, they could not unblock it and I would have to call back at 8:00 EST, or 21:00 in China.

I did leave the hostel to walk around a little bit and try the MC a few more times just in case.  Even the few blocks around my hostel seemed exciting (and had even in the middle of the night!), and the Sichuan hot pot restaurants looked especially interesting.  This was a mall full of restaurants.

It was also obvious that Chengdu is obsessed with their panda bears.

I decided I could go without food for awhile, but coffee was a must, so I stopped at a nice cafe to enjoy an Americano.

Other than my neighbourhood tour, I was not going to be able to see or do much in Chengdu on Saturday, so it was super fortuitous that my hostel was hosting a free sampler show of Sichuan opera!  I was very impressed!  There were two ladies, each of which danced to one song (neither actually sang but had their music played from a recording).

The highlight of Sichuan opera is what they call "face changing," which involves fairly nifty silk masks.  There were probably ten or so "face changes" during this song, but I only captured two in this video:

The free sampler show was so enjoyable, I still wished I could see a full show afterwards!

Finally sometime around 21:00, Visa called me for more information, and at exactly 21:00 I called MC to get my card unlocked.  Long story short, neither credit card company managed to solve my problem, but incidentally in the conversation with MC, I realized my Canadian debit card would work on the Cirrus network.  A quick Bing search (Google is blocked in China) told me the Bank of China ATMs would accept Cirrus cards.  I hung up on MC and ran two blocks to the Bank of China.  I could barely believe it when the ATM spat the cash out.  The solution had been in my wallet the whole time.  I was too happy to be embarrassed.

I paid off my hotel so as to keep my room and, since it was now after 22:00, I started eating for the first time that day!  I began with, of all things, a spicy duck neck!  Apparently this is a street food Sichuan is famous for.  I did not photograph the duck neck, but it is basically what you would expect, except longer, and more-or-less done up like a chicken wing.

It was served with plastic gloves to mitigate the messiness of eating it!

After food, I turned in, much more relaxed than I had been when the day started.

This morning, pocket full of cash, I began to actually tour Chengdu!  First I went out to the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, which was a relatively easy metro and bus ride from my hostel.

I was quite taken with this artwork at the entrance way . . .

. . . as well as this poster, which interestingly dropped the final line of the Christian hymn's stanza: "The Lord God made them all."

It is a little bit of a walk to get to the pandas, including along this lovely bamboo-lined avenue.

They say arriving early in the morning is best to see the panda's at their most active, and it was already 10:00 by the time I got to them, so I was worried they might be preparing for their day naps (apparently they usually nap from roughly 11:00-17:00!).  Maybe it was because it was a cooler day (about 18 degrees, I think), but they were still very active when I arrived.  Also, even though at first I felt like I was arriving late and it was the weekend, it actually was relatively empty.  I had the first panda "all to myself"!  S/he was munching on bamboo, branch after branch after branch.  I have read that their bodies are quite inefficient in terms of how much they have to eat to derive the calories they need.

Just behind first panda bear's enclosure was another with this guy, even more active than the first.

I could not figure out which pandas were which, but signs like these gave some information, and I was surprised to see that one of the pandas had been born in the wild--as I understand it, there are quite a good number of pandas in China, but very, very few are now left in the wild.  Most pandas are now born as part of some sort of management program such as the research park represents.

Speaking of births, the highlight for most people is the young.  By now, as is obvious, it was getting busy!  These are three lazy one year olds.

These little guys are even younger:

I was glad to have seen the young ones, but I found the adults much more interesting and certainly they were more active.  Also, less popular, so I could watch them without pushing through crowds. 

I have not quite captured it in this photo, but this full sized adult is WAY up in a tree, that really does not look especially strong.  I was pretty impressed with panda for climbing so high and the tree for holding it!

Even though I had really enjoyed watching the two pandas at the Shanghai Zoo in 2016, I still did not expect to be all that excited about the pandas here in Chengdu.  But now that I was here in person, I could really understand why they are such compelling animals.  The research park has done a great job it seems to me of giving the pandas lots of space but also allowing for good viewing (maybe partly because there are so many pandas, so chances are at least a few of them will be readily view-able).

Besides the giant pandas, the research centre has some other animals as well, including black swans . . .

. . . red pandas . . .

. . . and at least one peacock!

Sometime after 11:00 I headed out to wait for the bus next to yet more panda art!