Day 12: Chengdu - Big Buddha of Leshan - Chengdu
We get up at 6 in the morning and at 7 we are already having breakfast in the lounge of the Ibis Chengdu Hotel and today, after being yesterday knowing the Panda Bear Conservation Center in Chengdu, we will see the Leshan's Great Buddha.
It's 7:30 in the morning when we approach the hotel reception to tell one of the girls to please give us the name of the bus station to which we have to go to catch the bus from Chengdu to Leshan and thus go with the taxi directly, without having to go around.
The bus from Chengdu to Leshan it takes two hours to leave you at Leshan station and from there we have read that we will have to take another bus that leaves us at the foot of the Leshan's Great Buddha.
We take a taxi at the door of the hotel and arrive at Zinnamen station in 10 minutes for 8RMB.
There we go straight to the ticket office and ask for a couple of tickets for the Leshan's Great Buddha they give us paying 45RMB per person and at 8:20 we leave for Leshan's Great Buddha, another of the great reasons to make this trip to China for free.
We arrived at Leshan station at 10:20 in the morning and as soon as we got off we already see a cartel that indicates a minibus with the photo of the Great Buddha, where we just got to ride tell us that we have to pay 5RMB per person.
We are only 5 kilometers from the entrance to Leshan's Great Buddha, so it took us a little more than 15 minutes.
Another good option to visit the Great Buddha of Leshan from Chengdu is to book this excursion with a guide in Spanish where you will be picked up at your hotel.
More practical information to prepare your trip to China
- 10 essential places to visit in China
- 10 essential tips for traveling to China
As soon as we arrive we walk 20 meters and we find the ticket offices to enter the entire scenic area of the Great Buddha, since here we will not only see the great Buddha of Leshan, but also a series of stone Buddha carvings and temples, which they are, if possible, as incredible as the Giant Buddha himself.
Tickets cost 170RMB, but we show the student cards and they charge us 100, so on this occasion we have to say that we have succeeded 😉
We enter the premises at 10:45 in the morning, much earlier than expected, with a time that already announces that we are moving towards the south of the country and therefore the heat comes.
As we enter we see that we have entered the southern area, the best way without wanting to, and that is how we can see the whole complex before reaching the Leshan's Great Buddha, the icing on the cake.
As soon as we entered, we found ourselves, unknowingly, with a 170-meter lying Buddha that leaves us, as soon as we entered with our mouths open, and we had read a lot about the Leshan's Great Buddha, but practically nothing, or rather nothing about the rest of places that we could see if we entered through this door of the Leshan's Big Buddha Park.
In the background you can see the head of the Lying Buddha of 170 meters
We only need to advance a few meters to meet the Great Buddha of Longmen, another of the sculptures that leave us with our mouths open and completely located, since we believe it is impossible to have read so little about this area of Leshan.
Awesome Great Buddha of Longmen
In this area of Leshan's Big Buddha Park It seems that you are getting lost at times, since every few steps you take, between ascents, descents and stairs, you discover different caves, temples or sculptures that delight anyone.
Leshan's Big Buddha Park
Interior of one of the caves of Leshan's Big Buddha Park
Leshan's Big Buddha Park
After almost two hours missing out on all these important points of the Leshan's Big Buddha Park, almost alone, which is certainly worth traveling and we do not understand how there is no more information and are highlighted (for us an essential visit next to the Great Buddha of Leshan), we arrive at the Great Buddha of Leshan and it is here when hundreds or thousands of Chinese are piled up, as if there was no tomorrow, to take the picture of Leshan's Great Buddha.
Leshan's Great Buddha
Photographing Leshan's Great Buddha
There is a local saying that says: The mountain is Buddha and Buddha is the mountain. There is no better place than this to understand it.
Face of the Great Buddha of Leshan
The Great Buddha of Leshan, serene-looking and 1200 years old, is carved on the side of a mountain of the Dàbú and Min rivers. With 71 meters high, 7 meters ears and 8.5 meters toes, we can say that it is the Biggest Buddha in the world carved in stone.
Leshan's Great Buddha
Here we are for a while, in the upper area with the head of the Leshan's Great Buddha right next to it and after taking the pictures of rigor, we planted ourselves in the endless queue to begin to descend the mountain by the stairs that accompany the Great Buddha.
Views of the Great Buddha of Leshan as we go down the stairs
It takes us to complete the entire downhill route for almost an hour and it is that all of us who are going down want to stop to take pictures and have the best perspective, something practically impossible with the hundreds of people here.
Leshan's Great Buddha
And when we get down and think that the exit is already there, it turns out not. Now we have to go back up, on the side, to find the nearest exit to the place where the bus left us this morning. After several doubts we decided to do it through the South Gate, passing through the fishing village where there are craft shops and small restaurants with vats on the doors that contain fish, turtles and prawns, in which you choose which one you want to eat.
Leshan's Big Buddha Park
When we arrive at the exit we see that we are at the extreme opposite of where we arrived, so at the door a woman with the typical bike and cart tells us that she takes us by 20RMB to the bus stop that she knows we are looking for.
We are so tired and we want to eat so much that we don't even haggle. And there we go on a tricycle through Leshan, until we reach the east entrance, which is where the bus left us this morning.
As the beach bars we see here are all local enough to not even know what to eat, we decided to wait for the bus to take us to Leshan city and eat there, but a kind woman points out that the direct buses to Chengdu leave right from the parking lot from across the road.
So we approached and after several attempts asking, a charitable soul tells us that in half an hour the bus will leave for Chengdu and that they charge 50RMB per person.
We decided to take this bus and thus avoid having to go first to Leshan and then take the other bus to Chengdu. Of course, we leave without eat as god commands. We only buy a kind of cake dough, by the way great, that make us on fire for 5RMB. So today we have to make snack-dinner.
At 3 in the afternoon, our bus leaves and in just over two hours leaves us at the Chengdu bus station, just over a mile from the Ibis Chengdu Hotel.
We are busted, so on the way to the hotel we go straight to have a snack / dinner, have a coffee and after 7 in the afternoon we are already taking a shower and preparing everything to get up early tomorrow: we go to another of the Main courses of the trip to China: Zhanjiajie National Park, or Avatar Park.
Day 13: Chengdu - Chongqing: Flight to Zhangjiajie - Wulingyuan
