Dazu: Sculptures

Woke up this morning and went down to the little restaurant for my complimentary breakfast. There was a bit of a buffet set out, with mostly lunch-like foods, so I had noodles and broccoli and really bad coffee. Then we waited around for a while for our tour to Dazu. The mini-bus they had wasn’t big enough for everyone, so they had to arrange for a new one.

Finally we were on our way and we drove through the city past gutted out buildings (couldn’t tell if they were building them or tearing them down), new buildings, old rundown apartment blocks, and apartments with wire cage balconies with stuff crammed into them up to the tops (can you say “fire hazard”?). We stopped for gas at one point and let out half of the people to use the restroom. Of course as they were filling the tank they left all the doors open and let all the hot air out!

Eventually we were in the countryside going down a very bumpy road. The driver was constantly honking and slamming on the brakes. We passed little brick houses and open land. The farm houses surprised me because many of them were made of red brick, which never struck me as a Chinese building material. (Of course, China probably invented bricks or something.)



We finally made it to Baodingshan, which is the main grouping of Buddhist statues in Dazu. The carvings in the grottos in this area were all made between 1174 and 1252, and represent Tantric Buddhism. Before going up to the area with the statues, we had lunch at one of the restaurants on the main street (which was a dirt road). Lunch was pretty good and we were joined by the cat and dog who hissed and growled at each other. Other people in our group were smoking up a storm and everyone was smacking their lips (which drives me absolutely buggy). It seems that many Chinese people eat with their mouth open and try to make as much noise as possible when eating.

The statues themselves were absolutely amazing. They had incredible detail and there was one grouping of three statues that were like 10 meters tall. I took five hundred million pictures – every statue seemed more amazing or interesting than the last. Despite the fact that it was raining slightly, it was well worth the trip out to see them. I kept imagining that these were over 1000 years old, and some of them still had gold paint on them, and very few were weathered from time. The souvenir stands also sold lots of carved things. I ended up buying a Buddha face carved out of White Purple Jade. It is a jadeite that alternates layers of white and purple colour. I figured that would make a nice souvenir.



After spending a few hours looking around (with the aid of one of Cal’s books and some informative postcards, because they tour was entirely in Chinese), we wandered back to the mini-bus. Little kids were running up to us with woven reed things they wanted us to buy for 5 yuan. Ha! I bought one for 1 yuan. I figure I’d rather give money to a little kid who had done something productive, than to someone on the street just standing there with a cup.

The ride back was just as bumpy as the ride to Dazu. I noticed that all of the stores tend to be in groups. The stores basically look like garages all lined up beside each other. So, you would go past 10 tire stores in a row, then 10 sundry stores (can’t really call them convenience stores because they don’t stock very much), then 10 fruit stores, etc. Very strange.



When we got back we were cold (they driver didn’t / wouldn’t turn the heat on for the way back) and needed to get some dinner before we boarded our boat for the cruise. We ended up just eating dinner at our hotel. It was ok, but nothing special. Just food in our stomachs!

After dinner, we collected our bags from the concierge and then walked down to the docks. At the docks, we had to take a funicular car down to the boat. There was a man there that spoke good English who explained the process of everything to us. All kinds of people were getting on the boat and wandering around. It was total chaos!

We eventually got to our rooms, which are very basic. The man who spoke English came by and sold us tickets to all of the sites along the Yangtze as well as for the bus from Yichang to Wuhan. Later on we found out we got totally scammed. We paid about 760 yuan, which was at least double what everything cost. I guess because he spoke English, and said he was part of the Port Authority we automatically assumed he was trustworthy.

We soon found out we had also been scammed by the Port Authority, whom we bought our tickets from. There was no hot water, which we hadn’t asked for (so that was ok), but also there was no heat. At all. We only bought tickets because we had been promised heat. So needless to say we are not happy. Hopefully once the boat gets moving it will warm up a bit.

What is really interesting is all the people walking by opening up random doors and looking in. I finally just locked my door. All of these strangers keep checking in on me. Even with the door locked, people are constantly twisting the door handle. I decided to pay the 100 yuan deposit and get my own key – I have too many electronics for people to be able to come in and out at will.

Since it is so cold, I quickly did some wash so I would have some clean clothes, grabbed some hot tea and crawled under the covers. I did walk around the boat with Cal for a quick tour though – there were lots of people playing mah jong on the third deck, and the other decks just had people running all over the place. I’m looking forward to looking out my picture window (which is just huge!) watching the scenery go by.

Oh, one other thing. Our guide, Café (his “English” name) actually speaks a bit of English. So at least we’ll know where we are supposed to go and when. His first instruction was he will wake us up tomorrow just after 5am so we can go to the Ghost Town! Guess that means I should get to bed!

There are tons more pictures of Dazu on my photoblog!