Sichuan Part Two

This time it's on to Leshan and Chongqing which is technically not Sichuan anymore cuz it's it's own municipality.

it's comforting to see how scrapped up these mirrors are that protrude very far from the buses.  China is infamous for it's dangerous and often deadly buses.  More on that and the best bus ride of my life after the yangtze river cruise.

it's comforting how these spit bags come standard on buses.  It sounds like an exercise from John Gray's (author of men are from mars women are from venus) book "What you feel you can heal"  Should I be upset that these spit bags are available encouraging spitting or should i be happy that they are available so the spit doesn't end up all over the whole bus?  What's it going to be John Gray?  Also don't even ask how i know about this book.

military flex

slash and burn?

whatever this was it was awesome.  i don't think its tea, its some kind of barley or something.

I always wanted to come to this place to see the Leshan Dafo (Giant Buddha from Leshan) 乐山大佛.  built in 618–907AD It is the largest carved stone Buddha in the world^[1] and it is by far the tallest pre-modern statue in the world (via wikipedia).  

according to rough guides 6 people at once can stand on his big toenail.  Look at the size of the people back there.

now for the part that makes me want to cry.  we found out that the last bus to chongqing from leshan was at 4pm.  4pm is the last bus or you're stranded!!!  that meant we didnt have time to wait in line with all those people because it would take 2 hrs to get to the buddha and we didn't have time to take the ferry that you take to get this shot either.  So i never got to see this amazing sight from this angle in person.  I have been waiting 4 years for this.  crushing, absolutely crushing.  this is not my photo, I found this photo on http://www.lacitadelle.univergence.com/

there is the ferry that we should have been taking if we had time.  

around the chongqing long distance bus station there were tons of tibetians selling crap like antlers, combs made out of who knows what, and strangely knives and extendable steel nightsticks.  Will was looking at one and the guy was talking to him and then we went to move on and the guy saw he wasn't going to buy the baton so he started cursing and said i will f'ing stop your head in until your teeth fall out.  Will being more zen than I am walked away and muttered something about angry Tibetians.

squat break.  bus to chongqing took i don't know how many hours, 6?  a lot of this china trip was spent on buses because if you didn't know china is f'ing huge.  

rest stop

Will with his great sunny attitude as always.

told gate to somewhere.

will had credit so we got to stay at the Le Meridian in Chongqing.  Chongqing is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities (the other three are Beijing, Shanghaiand Tianjin) and is home to 29 million people!  It's technically not Sichuan anymore.

I love these dirty places.  Look at it!  how cool does it look?

chillin' in his PJ's 

in Chongqing they turn off the traffic lights at night so you just have to go whenever, and that means if you're a pedestrian too (although that's like all the time even when they are on basically).  Sound crazy to you?  welcome to China.