The night on the train, despite the lack of people, had been awful. I woke with a headache and feeling sleep deprived. We had recently decided to add Dunhuang (old caves) and Jiayuguan (western end of the Great Wall), both in Gansu, to our itinerary and had also planned to go straight to Leshan from Chengdu, see the sights there, and return to Chengdu. What with adding stuff to our itinerary and still thinking we had to be back to start class on February 25th, we were getting quite tight for time. We arrived at Chengdu and instantly got a taxi to the long distance bus station to get a bus to Leshan. The driver in fact took us to the tourist bus station but that was okay because Leshan was one of the destinations. Soon we were on a bus, Leshan-bound. Driving through Chengdu I got the impression it was a nice place and looked forward to seeing it for real when we returned.
When we got to Leshan we were dropped off at a bus station on the outskirts of town. It was worryingly reminiscent of Tangkou. We were surrounded on all sides by annoying hollering taxi drivers but we ignored them and headed off in the direction where the town seemed to lie. My back was having none of it though and so we gave up and got in a taxi. We had a very sensible taxi driver who upon being told that we didn't know where to go took us to a Lonely Planet recommended hotel. The prices were steep but the English-speaking receptionist, on hearing our dismay, plummeted the price down to 120 yuan per night per room. 60 each was not half as bad and we took a twin room for one night. We left immediately to see the Giant Buddha, the main attraction of Leshan and the reason we were there. They advised us in the hotel to get bus number 13, which we tried. The bus driver asked us where we were going, and when we told him shook his head. The next number 13, which we tried just in case, let us on. The same thing happened the next day; it appears that every 1 in 2 of the number 13 buses goes to the tourist sites, and the other one doesn't!
The Buddha is world record breaking as the world's tallest sitting Buddha at 71 metres. It was a climb to reach the head and we missed out on many parts of the scenic area due to time constraints, such as the temple. Though having said that, I am sick to the back teeth of temples. The views from the cliffs into which the Buddha was carved were not wonderful, but we could see the confluence of the three rivers which had at a time been so dangerous that they had inspired the building of the Buddha, whose presence would calm the waters. In fact the waste stones from the carving were dumped into the rivers, which calmed them into docile little waterways. It is hard to now imagine how dangerous they once were. The Buddha was huge but I must say seemed rather out of proportion. To walk down the winding cliff steps to his feet we had to queue and snake down at a very slow pace. But at the bottom the views directly up to the huge Buddha were awe-inspiring. His mere toe was bigger than me!
After the obligatory photos we left to go back to the hotel. We couldn't spot the bus stop though and didn't have an address for our hotel, so we ended up walking back. It was surprisingly enjoyable and relaxing, though it did rain practically the whole way back and our trouser legs were soaked through. It's weird to have any kind of precipitation living in Xinjiang!
At our hostel we regrouped and, absolutely starving, went out to find a restaurant. We went to a recommended restaurant but when we found it they said we needed reservations. On the way I couldn't resist buying a candied fruit kebab stick and I think it was the nicest thing I've ever tasted. Looking for the recommended restaurant we had gone up and down the same long street over and over again, before realising it was split into sections and the house numbers started again in each section. We passed kebab stalls several times over and after being turned away from the restaurant, we finally succumbed. The kebabs here were not barbequed on an open fire like back home (home being Urumqi) but deep-fried. I had a chicken wing in batter and a few little lamb kebabs, to stave off my hunger till we found somewhere to eat.
We walked back along the route we'd walked home along earlier, as we'd seen a few busy looking restaurants. On the way we passed another kebab seller, who was clearly a Uyghur and as we can't resist Xinjiang kebabs we stopped and got a couple from him. We greeted him in Uyghur but he didn't seem in any way surprised that we would do so! Turned out he was from Kashgar and was pleased to find out that we'd been and seen his hometown before. His kebabs, though advertised as Xinjiang style, had been totally Sichuanified.
The busy restaurants we'd seen had emptied by now and refused to serve us. Finally we decided to get street food. We found a perfect kebab stall which had an area behind the roasting fire with benches and fires and we stopped there. First we tried out a few of the kebabs: 3 lamb, 3 beef, and 1 rabbit each. The kebabs here were much much smaller than the ones we were used to in Xinjiang, but it seemed like the kind of place where you get pick-and-mix - considering the things on offer! I also got a chicken drumstick that was gorgeous once it had been on the fire, and Liam got a entire flattened bird which may have been pigeon. I tried it but it was so hard to get any meat off it we both thought it was hardly worth it. We got loads more beef and lamb to take away, plus a couple more rabbit as it had been nice. I then couldn't help but brave some huge black bugs on a stick. If the choice is there in front of me, I think it's always good to try new stuff! Back in the hostel, with Liam filming me in case my reaction was extreme, I began to eat. I had a shudder as it first touched my lips because I imagined it coming to life and crawling over my tongue, and it was one vicious-looking breed of beetle. But then I thought stop being such a wimp, it's clearly dead and cooked, so I took an entire big bug off the stick and ate the whole thing. Extremely crispy, but with very little flavour. After a bit of convincing, Liam tried one too but was not a fan of the texture of antennae and crunchy legs in his mouth. Fair enough! On a full stomach of bug, we went to bed.
The now peaceful confluence of three rivers.
Me and the world's official biggest sitting Buddha. Or, his head.
At the bottom of the Buddha, looking up in awe.
Mmmm kebabs! And so many to choose from.
Starting off with some simple tasty rabbit.
Bugs, oh yes. Nyam nyam nyam.
No comments:
Post a Comment