Day 92: April 5, 2013 Now That is One Giant Buddha!

      We took it pretty easy this morning and didn’t even get out of bed until 10 and then we all packed up our stuff and went to check out. We turned in our keys and then they started saying something to us in Chinese that we didn’t understand so we just walked away assuming they were offering us food or something. Luckily one guy chased us down and saying bus and we managed to figure out that they were offering to take us to the Giant Buddha for free. They told us to sit down and wait and in a few minutes we had our own private car that dropped us off right at the entrance. It started to rain so we got out all of our rain gear and then got our tickets and headed inside. Bryan and Jess couldn’t have been more relieved that we weren’t going to have to see any more monkeys on this trip and then sure enough right as we walked in there were two monkeys right there. They blew right by them as fast and they could but I really wanted to hold one so I made them go back with me. For 10 yuan I got to hold him and take a picture, which was totally worth it. The little guy was all dressed up and super cute. Bryan and Jess warmed up to the idea as soon as they saw how nice he was and they too decided to hold him. With our last monkey encounter out of the way we headed further into the park to make our way to the Buddha. 

     We didn’t realize it at first but rather than just the Buddha there was actually a whole park with all sorts of sights so we decided to stop by as many as we could on the way to the Buddha. There were tons of cool artifacts and Buddha carvings that all were really pretty. At one point we made it into this open area and realized that there was nowhere to go but up which entailed walking up a 100 or so unbelievably steep steps which wasn’t exactly on our on agenda after climbing the mountain. We sucked it up and got to the top and were rewarded with a great view of the park and a really cool Buddha at the top. It also put yesterday’s hike into perspective since we could actually see how far we had gotten. The fog was totally deceiving on the mountain because we were amazed how high we had gotten in just a couple minutes let alone the 9 hours. We continued along and looked at all of the cool Buddhas until we had made it all the way to where the main attraction was. 

      We hopped in a line without much investigation and realized we were moving very slowly. After about 30 minutes we sent Jess ahead to investigate how long we had ahead of us and she came back not looking very pleased. She told us it wasn’t looking very good and that we had to weave through 2 other lines before we even got to the stairs that we had to walk down that were the length of the Buddha to get to the base. We realized we had a while and were getting really bored so we decided to start playing 20 questions. It actually turned out to be really fun, a great way to pass the time, and was pretty funny when Bryan would come up with the most ridiculous questions. We also made some friends in line who were probably just staring at us for the first 15 minutes of waiting and eventually when Bryan said ni hao they got up their courage to ask for a picture with us. From then on they were all over us giving us all sorts of snacks that their parents were handing up from the back. We talked with them as much as we could and then after not too long we finally made it to the stairs to the bottom. We had to do quite a bit of shoving if we were ever going to make it to the bottom and hold our ground so we made sure to “assert our dominance” as Bryan would say. The stairs were pretty packed but it was tolerable because we had a great view of the Buddha the whole way down. 

First view of the Buddha - the top of its head!

      It was seriously amazing to look at because it was just so huge. The size of one of the fingers was triple my size and it was just carved right out of the mountain, which was awesome. After about 2.5 hours total we finally made it to the base where his feet were. That really put things into perspective when you could look back up all of the stairs and see how far you had come and realize just how big the Buddha really was. We took tons of pictures including quite a few with random Chinese people as always and of course one with our friends from in line. After we had been starting at the Buddha for a quite a while and realized we had taken about 100 of the same pictures we decided it was time to leave.

      Unfortunately we had to climb all the way back up to the head, which was pretty disappointing, but we made it without too much trouble. After that we were on a mission to get out of the park and to the bus station as quickly as we could so that we could make it back to Chengdu in time for dinner with Ross and Miles.

      We went out of one of the exits and were bombarded by people asking to take us in their bike drawn carriages. We didn’t know if there was another way out of the alley but we ended up finding a girl who spoke great English and said that she was going near the bus station and would help us get there. We walked for a while until we found the main road and hopped on a bus. She told us to just get off at the last stop and the station would be right there. The ride was a little longer than we expected but soon enough we got off and were right where we needed to be. We walked inside the station and got tickets for the bus but had about 45 minutes to kill which was perfect since we hadn’t eaten anything all day and it was already 4:00. We found a little noodle shop across the street and just told them we had to eat fast and the noodles were up in a matter of minutes.  After scarfing down our food we headed back over to the station and waited for our bus to be called. In the mean time we all bought Snickers for the road and ended up talked with a few guys from New Zealand and Scotland. After not very long it was time to get on the bus and head on our way. I slept most of the time and before I knew it everyone was getting yelled at to get off of the bus at this random street corner. We just went with it and then tried to catch a cab to the hotpot restaurant to meet Ross and Miles.

     Once we finally got a cab we just gave the phone to the driver and had Miles tell him where to go and we got there without a problem. Miles was so nice and had been waiting at the restaurant so we would have a table since it was so busy. By the time we got there we already had our hotpot filled with 2 different styles, one with no spice and one with a little spice (which is a lot more than just a little to us). They asked us what we wanted to eat and we told them anything basic like beef, potatoes, noodles, and other vegetables. They took care of the ordering and did an amazing job. We had all sorts of things like beef, potatoes, noodles, cucumbers, seaweed, lotus root, and even pig intestines. They were surprisingly not bad considering everything you throw in the hotpot just comes out tasting like the spicy broth but the texture was pretty funny. Everything was seriously amazing and the amount of spice was about perfect for us since we have been building up our tolerance since we’ve been here. We had a great conversation over dinner and caught up with what they had been doing since we last saw them. Unfortunately they were wrong on the bus times back to Chengdu from Mt. Emei and ended up having to take a cab all the way back, which they said was kind of a mess. Other than that Miles told us more about his trip to Cambodia and we told them about some of our trips we have been on and decided that if any of us are ever in town near them that we would have to stop by and visit. 

     After an amazing meal Bryan, Jess, and I all agreed that we would pay for their meals since they had been more than helpful to us and had been seriously amazing. Before we could even bring it up they told us they were going to pay for us and we told them no way. We argued for a while and they suggested we just split it evenly but we insisted that we pay since they had done so much for us. We eventually pulled the guilt card and told them we would be offended if they didn’t accept our gift and they agreed only after making us promise that they could take us to this pedestrian street and buy us snacks. After a super traditional Chinese exchange we took care of the check and headed over to the bar and shopping street that turned out to be really cool. It had all sorts of cool little things like horse statues coming out of the walls and a wall full of nails that you could pull in and out to spell things. 

     We ended up coming across some gelato and decided we would get some and of course Miles insisted on paying, which I guess was only fair. We all got the cookie gelato and it was really, really good. Very satisfied with the taste in our mouths, Ross then offered us these traditional Chinese snack she had bought to bring back to her friends. We told her we didn’t want to take them from her friends but she pulled out a giant bag she had bought and insisted. They didn’t look so great as they looked like meat in shrink wrap but they told us it wasn’t so I went ahead and tried it. It was some kind of dried tofu I believe and it wasn’t terrible but definitely not my favorite thing. I made an expression like I enjoyed it and passed it along to Jess who later scolded me for making such a pleased face. Bryan and Jess thought it was gross so it got handed back to me and I just searched for a trash can to slyly ditch it in without them noticing. We continued our walk around until we stopped at this stand where this guy made these incredible sugar animals on sticks. Miles got us a dragon so we got to watch him make it start to finish and it was seriously incredible. He just took this sugar taffy and stretched it in all different ways until somehow there was a dragon and then he even painted it for a final touch. It felt wrong to eat it but we all took a piece after cracking half of it onto the floor. 

     After that we stopped into this little historical site that was pretty cool since Ross and Miles could actually tell us what it was. It was interesting because apparently you could rent it out for parties, which we thought was kind of funny. After that it was pretty late and about time to be heading back to our hostel. We thanked them both one last time and told them how lucky we were to have met such nice people. We got a picture with them and then said goodbye. They even gave us hugs, which is very rare for Chinese people, because they knew we would like it. They then put us in a cab to our hostel and headed back to their hotel. The whole cab ride back the three of us talked about how great they were and that we were so happy we got to spend time together and make some knew friends as earlier in the trip we were saying it is sad that we haven’t really made any true Chinese friends. Very happy we checked into our hostel only to be told we weren’t all going to be in the same room so Jess and I roomed with two random guys and Bryan roomed with three random girls. We all grabbed our laptops and took advantage of the wifi and after about an hour we called it a night.