Little Mountain, Big Buddha

At the foot of the Leshan Buddha

Today was a bit of a fiasco. We were going to a place called Leshan which is the site of a giant Buddha that has been carved on the side of a cliff. It was supposedly only going to take us 1.5 hours to get there so we figured we'd be able to see that and another cultural site in the same day. Well, it ended up taking over 3 hours and by the time we got to the area it was time to eat lunch.
The driver wasn't very familiar with the area so we drove around for a bit before we finally convinced him to stop and ask for some directions. After being parked in the middle of the road (literally) for about 10 minutes we were escorted by one of the driver's local contacts to a good restaurant.

Lunch at Leshan

We had another delicious lunch and proceeded to the temple to see the Buddha. We walked around the site for a bit before finding the stairways to the Buddha and it was jam packed with people. It looked like it would take an hour just to get down there so we hemmed and hawed about whether or not to even go. Eventually, we decided that since we were here we had to go.
It only took about 15 minutes to walk down the stairs which were steep and narrow. When we got to the bottom, we all agreed it wasn't as bad as we thought and it was worth the trip. The Buddha is ginormous. His toe is about the height of a person. We took some pics and made the long trek back up.

Little tiger

Buddha in a shrine

By then it was time to go and we knew we had a long drive back. When we got back to the city we were pretty hungry so we asked the driver to drop us off at a local food court. We walked around a bit looking for a restaurant before finally settling on one that looked like it served some really spicy food. Boy were we right! Bernard was crying throughout the meal. Annemarie said it was "not so hot" but of course she had some cold local beer to wash it down with!

Not your everyday Starbucks

After the spicy dinner it was time for dessert and we got some mango smoothies nearby. We sat outside until it started to rain a little, so we decided to call it a day and head back to the hotel.