Big Buddha

I took the bus two hours from Chengdu to Leshan to see the giant Buddha. It's supposed to be the biggest Buddha in the world, or even, according to something I saw, the biggest stone carving.

The place was swarming with tourists, mostly Chinese tour groups who mobbed the area to the side of Buddha's face to take pictures. There were other things to see on the top of the mountain, like a tall pagoda and yet another temple. I was hungry and bought a little 5 yuan bowl of noodles. It was hot enough that my eyes watered profusely and the noodle-stand women laughed gently at me. Several people asked to take pictures with me while I was there; there were only a handful of other Westerners.

The Buddha was big. No surprises there, but I'm glad I saw it.

As I left the site a man asked whether I was going to Chengdu and hustled me onto a minibus that would meet the big bus along the road. I was happy to be saved the effort of getting to the bus station. While we waited for the big bus the middle-aged Chinese couple who were the only other minibus passengers tried to talk to me. The woman spoke a little English. They said America was a nice country, and I said China was very interesting. Later, after the bus made a stop at a gas station with a fruit stand, the woman gave me an orange.

The bus left us at a station on the far outskirts of town, not the same one I'd left from. I couldn't figure out where I was or even how to take a taxi--none of the drivers were in their cars, although one woman told me she'd take me where I wanted to go (I'd written down the address of a restaurant) for 30 yuan, which sounded like far too much. Finally I got a cab driver who would turn on his meter; it cost 20 yuan, but the restaurant Lonely Planet had recommended so highly seemed no longer to exist. The person who invents a combination pocket translator and deliverer of travel information that's actually up-to-date will deserve to be very rich.

I saw a few Western restaurants and even an Indian place, but was determined to get some good Chinese food. I stopped into a place that looked fairly upscale, but I'd miscalculated: The menu wasn't in English, and there weren't really any vegetarian dishes. The first woman who tried to wait on me gave up in frustration. Then a young guy tried, and I randomly pointed to one of the dishes he said was a vegetable dish. It turned out to be a plate of broccoli--excellent broccoli, and served with rice, but not nearly enough for my empty stomach. Defeated, and feeling like one of the characters in Lost in Translation, I crossed the street and entered the Shamrock Pub.

At least half of the patrons were foreigners, and normally when traveling I become more gregarious. But even there I didn't talk to anyone except the waiter, just ordered an excellent "mocktail" and a flavorless vegetarian pizza, read, scribbled in my journal, and left before the live music started. If I kept up my antisocial ways, I thought, the nonstop schmoozing of the conference I'd soon attend in California would be quite a shock to my system.