When Jez first suggested going to see this Buddha it was a resolute "no" from me! I was a bit overloaded with Buddhas, tiny Thai amulets, small Laoatian figurines, jade diamond encrusted Cambodian images in palaces, large Burmese shrines in temples and huge Mongolian idols. A bit buddha'd out really!

BUT, my mum and John had'nt seen so many and it was the biggest in the world. So we went and it was definately worth it.

We took a private minibus from MIX hostel for the 2 hour trip. The hours queing for tickets the day before at the railway station and the memories of millions of Chinese barging past you, spitting and screaching had not diminished and we needed some peace...even if it was just for 2 hours.

His toes are bigger than me!

We took a tourist boat for half an hour to see the Buddha from the water. It was indeed massive. You could see hoards of people clambering down the huge rock face it had been calved into looking like ants next to high rises. If it wasnt for the bellowing Chinese loud speaker touting guides it may have been quite a spiritual moment. 5 chinese people floated past our boat in the grimy, muddy, horrid litter ridden water, swimming hats on shouting prayers and trying desperately to press their hands together is gesture of prayer whilst the current carried them into yet more gunk. Devoted indeed, a little bit over the top maybe, absolutely hilarious definately!

We decided to follow the crowds and brave the walk to his feet. We waited in lines and lines of ques just like in Alton towers. And then it started to rain. And then the heavens opened and the Chinese lost all sense of the new and strange phenonenon that was the inflicted queueing system and began to leap over the barriers to the nearest pagoda. We waited it out. We were soaked after the first 3 minutes anyway. Completely soaked. One young girl ventured out from under the pagaoda and lent us her umbrella. How nice was that. Well we did look ridiculous.

2 minutes of spitituality amongst the scrum

The climb down after the inevitable bottle neck due to the guards doing a runner from the rain was very slippy. We slide through sacred caves with images carved into the sandstone, and slowly from his head to his toes saw the Grand Buddha up close. He was built in the 8th century and he took nearly 90 years to carve. Thousands of workers helped to make him what he is today. Massive! He is 71 meters (about 233 feet) high, and has three-meter-long (about 11 feet) fingers. His ears are 7 metres (23 feet) long. Ha! his toe nails are bigger than me. He was the vision of a monk called Hai Tong who wanted to do something to stop the number of accidents and deaths of his fellow people caused by the raging waters. The people belived these accidents were because of a water spirit. Hai Tong collected alms for over 20 years and managed to fulfil his dream. He built the Buddha to calm the water spirit. It seemed to work, but whether this was due to the Buddha being able to control the water spirit or the sheer amount of stone being dropped into it is a mystery.

We lost ourselves (literally) in the gardens surrounding the buddha. pagoda's, caves, waterfalls, it really was quite beautiful. We would have made it back to the bus at the agreed time aswell if it wasnt for the chinese guard at the gate deciding that we had to climb yet another hundred million steps and use a different exit. Oh well who's for spicy ass meat or jellyfish?