Day 21: Big Buddha
Today we went to see a giant Buddha statue!
Ok, so this title references a game you may or may not know. So excuse the inside joke if you are on the outside. So, the game “Big Booty” …. All I could think about was the words for this game, but instead of saying “big booty”, it was “big Buddha”. Awwwwwww big Buddha. Big Buddha, aww yeah. Big Buddha, big Buddha, big Buddha!
Ok, done. Moving on.
We rented a bus for the day, since 30 of us wanted to go. Phil stayed behind to rest. It was about an hour ride there, and you could start seeing the giant Buddha from miles away. It really was a ginormous Buddha!
See how big it is from this far away?
The place was very much a tourist attraction, so that meant lots of people and higher prices. Here’s our group for the day:
And here’s me with a monk.
The park was HUGE, so we bought tickets for the tram service.
Our first stop was a giant fountain. It had a rotating Buddha on top, a water show, music, and tons of people. This was a show that happened only at certain times, so we were lucky to get there while it was happening! Click here to watch:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvN5cpBRYrw&feature=youtube_gdata_player
There was also this amazing wall mural off the side of this area.
We were getting closer to the giant Buddha!
Next stop was actually the Buddha. It was something like 88 meters high. That’s really high.
We had to climb all those stairs! It reminded me of Montmarte in Paris.
So his hands are significant in this pose. The top hand (right hand) means “I will help you with your problems” (roughly translated), and the bottom left hand is like a blessing of peace being offered to you.
We could climb even higher. The view was amazing.
On the way up and down the Buddha statue, you had to walk through a museum, of sorts. It had some neat statues in there as well.
We boarded the tram again to go to yet another place. Here is what the little tram stops look like.
Well, our next stop was a beautiful place. It was a very large building with various things inside. The first part was a temple of sorts, though. But very different from any other temple we’ve seen.
We had to put on slipper covers over our shoes when we got it. It was exquisite inside!
That Buddha is real gold, folks. Solid gold.
Back on the tram to head back to the bus.
On our way back, we made a brief stop at this famous, large lake. Large is not accurate.
More like an ocean-sized lake. It just went on and on forever! We stayed just long enough to get some fun pictures.
And then we went back to the hotel for lunch and rest before the show.
I took a few more night shots of the river from a courtyard at the top of the theater. Just playing around with the different manual settings.
We went back to the hotel, ate dinner, packed up our stuff. Normal stuff. We were going to go back to that bar for more Delirium Nocturnum, but we ended up just staying in.