Leshan- October 2010

The next morning, I caught an early bus to Leshan where there is an amazingly large and ancient Buddha carved into the side of a mountain. The details of this Buddha are that the Leshan Giant Buddha was built during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). It is carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of the Minjiang, Dadu and Qingyi rivers in the southern part of Sichuan province in China, near the city of Leshan. The stone sculpture faces Mount Emei, with the rivers flowing below his feet. It is the largest carved stone Buddha in the world and at the time of its construction was the tallest statue in the world.

It was only a 30 minute bus ride to this town and a short taxi ride later I was boarding a boat to observe the Buddha from the water. (During the holiday week, I decided to avoid going to the Buddha and walking through. ) You can start up near his ear and climb down to his feet on a slow staircase going down single file. A combination of my legs not agreeing with a long downward climb and the pace that one could travel due to the crowds convinced me to just get the best viewpoint from the water. As the boat rounds a bend in the river, a pretty cool figure emerges.






Note the size relative to the people on the left side of the photo...




After getting my images, I decided to walk around the area for a little while and found a “wet” market. A wet market is a place where live animals and fish are sold from stalls to individual’s consumers for their cook at home meals. There are always interesting people and creatures for sale in these places. Something like this…








I decided to take a city bus to the big bus station that would take me to Chengdu for the balance of my trip and I was anxious to get settled into one place for a few days (three nights). While waiting for the bus, I realized the wet market was going to Chengdu with me…



Finally, on the bus, I was reading about Max Planck in a book by Bill Bryson. By the way, Bryson's book, "A Walk in the Woods" is a must read. Anyway, since I was a science student in college, I knew that Planck was a famous physicist but didn't remember that he invented quantum physics, I know, get to the point. Well, the point is, Planck was described as having some hardships in his life here's a quick excerpt about his life...
Planck was unlucky in life. His beloved first wife died early. The younger of his two sons was killed in WW1. He also had twin daughters. One daughter died giving birth. The surviving twin went to look after the infant, fell in love with the sister's widower and married him. Two years later she died in childbirth. In 1944, at age 85, Planck's house was hit by an Allied bomb destroying everything he worked for, his papers, his diaries and a lifetime of scientific accumulations. The following year his surviving son was caught in a conspiracy to assassinate Hitler and was executed.

Anyone want to complain about the cards they've been dealt in life?