Writer. Traveler. Tea Drinker.

Look close, through the trees.

There are so many famous giant stone statues in the world. The Sphinx in Egypt is one, the carved building front in Petra is another. We hear about all these wonders and marvels as they are featured in movies, documentaries and on the cover of National Geographic.

But there is one stone marvel I had never heard of before. It is not only a huge stone carving, but the largest Buddha in the world. As it was located in Leshan, only 2 hours outside of Chengdu, I knew we had to see it.

We had no idea what to expect as we walked up a wide staircase carved out of stone. When we got to the top we looked out and saw our man. (See picture on the right. It actually took us a minute and was a shock when we realized that was a head!)

The Giant Buddha (or Dàfó in Chinese) is an amazing sight. He is over a thousand years old, and over 200 feet tall. He is carved on the side of a mountain and overlooks the convergence of 3 rivers.

The Buddha is the brain child of a monk named Haithong in the year 713. The water was very rough in the area which killed many fisherman every year. The local people thought there was an evil water spirit so Haithong thought to build a Buddha statue that would eliminate the spirit and protect the fisherman.

He begged for money for 20 years before he could start building and as soon as he had a wad of cash some local officials approached him demanding the money. The story goes that instead of giving them the money he single-handedly pulled out his eyeballs saying, “You may have my eyes, but you can never touch the money for Buddha!” The official, thoroughly freaked out, left immediately and Haothong started his project. I don’t know if that story is true, but they have a statue of him near the top of the Buddha (right near the small cave he lived in) and he does look pretty bad ass.

The Buddha took thousands of people and 90 years to build. Haithong didn’t live to see it completed but amazingly it had the desired affect. When it was done the waters calmed and the fisherman were safe from the spirit. Of course, it might have had a little something to do with all the extra rock being thrown into the river as the Buddha was carved, therefore eliminating the hallows on the river bed giving it a smooth bottom. But who’s to say really.

The Buddha was also carved with some impressive skills. There are some hidden internal drainage systems to protect it from erosion. There are 1021 buns in his coiled hair each individually made and attached seamlessly. The ears look like stone but are actually wooden, covered with mud. Somehow, they managed to affix these flawlessly as well.

Alongside the cliff is a very steep staircase that you can climb down. They say in summer and holidays it takes over 2 hours to get to the bottom due to the crowds. Luckily we went in the middle of the week so we were down in less then 10 minutes. All along the walls there are carved Buddha’s and other Buddhist figures to add protection to the area. A lot of it is eroded now, but it was neat to look at.

But the Buddha isn’t the only impressive thing. In fact ancient villages, temples and gardens have been built in the area. We walked around for hours, stumbling upon a small ancient fisherman village (which is now home to souvenir stalls and little restaurants) crossed an amazing bridge and found ourselves at an ancient Buddhists temple complete with burning incense and yellow robed monks. There were also burial chambers, caves to explore and some amazing quiet natural spots (which I hard to come by especially in a tourist spots.)

The ancient fishing village

We stumbled upon this amazingly beautiful bridge while trying to find a temple.

All in all, it was an amazing area and one I highly recommend you visit if you find yourself in the area. We didn’t go out in a boat so I found this full picture of the Buddha on Wikipedia. For us it was impossible to capture the full figure so well because of our small camera and our close distance. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce to you….dafo!