樂山市和大佛 (Leshan City & The Giant Buddha)

I think out of all the placed I've been to in China so far, Leshan was my favorite.  From the moment I arrived in the town, I liked it.  The city didn't smell, the air wasn't filled with pollution, and the city was just kind of laid-back, not noisy and busy like Chengdu.  It was a really chill place.  Our hotel was really nice, too.  I was on the 12th floor, and the whole exterior wall was a window, so the view was amazing.  The night that we arrived in Leshan, we went out to explore the city a bit and we started walking along the river. Much to our surprise we found people swimming in the river.  The river is called the Qingyi River, and it has a very fast current and there are most likely some chemical plants upstream.  But we thought “what the hell?”.  Some of the locals do it twice every day.  So at six the next morning we woke up and were in the river by 7:30.  Some of the locals decided to join us so as to direct us where to swim and direct us through some of the currents.  The water wasn’t that bad actually, the area of China I’m in is a subtropical climate, so the water is pretty warm.  The whole experience lasted about 15 minutes.  The water was moving so fast that we probably swam about a kilometer or more.  Oh yeah, and I swam in my jeans because I didn’t have trunks and this guy swam in his boxers and had to walk down the street in to the hotel in his boxers.  So we got in to the elevator and the one hotel employee got in, and there was Mike, in his boxers.  The elevator ride was completely silent up until about halfway through, when we all look at each other and just laugh. Ohh…it was awkward.

Later that day we went to go see the Leshan Buddha.  It was HUGE, and RED.  And there were lots of stairs.  But seriously, it was really cool.  The Buddha was built about 1300 years ago to serve as a protector for the town.  Apparently there was (and still is) a dragon in the river.  The dragon would sink boats and wreak havoc in the village, but once the Buddha was built, it subdued the dragon so that the dragon could help the Buddha protect the city from evil spirits.  It is probably my favorite thing that I have done so far.