Leshan Great Buddha and Wuyou Temple
- Details
- Written by Jure Štern
We arrive to Chengdu in the early morning hours. At the train station we are awaited by a man with Jure written on a white paper. We must wait till 6.15 and then we get on a bus with Chinese tourists for a two day trip. Because of the fact that we are the only two foreigners in the group and that we can not speak Chinese nor they English, the astonishment that we got when entering the bus was not unexpected. But all in all it was a very nice experience, to travel with a Chinese travel group for two days, to see what their habits.
We are driving towards Leshan where the 71 meter tall Buddha awaits us. The sculpturing of The Great Buddha started in 713 B.C. by a monk called Haitong. It's purpose was to calm the river streams that took lives of many sailors. They wanted that Buddha would hear them. All of the stone from sculpting was cast off into the river and with that the stream was calm (they thought that Buddha had listen to them).
One year Budda has also closed his eyes and till today nobody know why. After that they opened the eyes again.
We continue our journey through the forest to the Wuyou Temple and from there to the Oriental Buddha Park in which there are more than three thousand Buddha statues. The green surroundings, rivers, streams, statues, 170 meter long laying Buddha in the mountain is a real pasture for the eyes.
The day is very long. At returning to the center of Leshan we stop in the museum of sculptures made of wood. It is a special kind of wood that was formed at the bottom of the rivers for many thousands of years.
We got used of the Chinese group and are communicatin with hands and a little Chinese. They also help us when eating, giving us food,...
Although we are tired we decide to go see an act in the theatre. The show is not so special, probably because we are dead tired. The time is ten o'clock in the evening and we are driving back to the foothills of Emei Shan with the bus. We sleep there in a hotel and the room temperature was near 10 degrees Celsius!
