Every living being has the same basic wish – to be happy

Sunday 26th November 2006

The Great Buddha – if you are in the UK did you see it on the BBC Holiday programme the other week? If so thats what I went to see. Carved into a cliff the great buddha meausres over 70m high – the largest buddha in the world and is surrounded by the oriental buddha park with more buddhas than you can count on 1 million hands and toes. The journey there was done by bus, coach and bus, first a bus to the local bus station, then a coach for over 2 hours then another little bus for 40 minutes (6p for this one). The coaches are very much like National Express Coaches in the UK, apart from little chineese ladies come round selling newspapers. There was a “Tea Lady” as well, but not serving tea – but to tell us where we were going, if I was to translate to English I am sure she said “Don’t try and have a crafty fag in the toilets because it is fitted with a smoke alarm but do sit back, relax and enjoy your journey up to the North of England”, or was that the North of the Great Buddha. The Great Buddha Park was a bit of a tourist trap, but all the same a magnicent site. A steep climb down to the bottom of the buddha put it all into perspective. What goes down then must go back up again, luckily I was one of the fit ones who got back up in one go, I didn’t envy some people though huffing and puffing after the first three steps. The journey back was interesting, the coach I caught (as instructed by the woman at the bus station) was only going as far as the south bus station in Chengdu and I was to find out that I would have to get a taxi back to the centre of Chengdu. However rather than leaving you stranded the Chineese give you some money back, so I was given 5yuan back in order to get a taxi. They did this with over half the people on the bus. Cute. Am taking to having showers late afternoon as the city is quite dusty and its nice to freshen up before having tea. Another plus side is that the showers are empty. They’re great showers really hot and powerful I could have stayed in them all night. The hostel is so clean, every five minutes someone is wiping the floor or cleaning something up, the only problem is washing will not dry. Time to get that hairdryer out, I knew I had brought it for a reason. Great tea – cost me 85p – very spicy noodle soup, I am becoming rather good with those chopsticks. Spent the evening chatting to a few english people who had done the world in reverse, from the Americas to New Zealand (we got on topic of how wonderful New Zealand was) to Australia to China to Thailand.