Breakfast was a chaotic affair--- loads of other tourists fighting for food. Thank God we were not in as much of a hurry.
Met by our CITS guide Irene at 9am. After a stop at the CITS office (apparently they still didn't believe that we booked the excursion back in the UK! But they got confirmation at the end.), we headed out onto Chengyu Expressway to Dazu. After 2 hours of overtaking lots of cars and trucks, and overtaking cars which were overtaking other cars (and we ended up in the the furthest lane on the opposite side of the road), we arrived at Dazu.
We first went to Baodingshan and since we were "laowai" (meaning foreigners) our car could go all the way to the entrance (rather than stopping about 1km from the entrance and then had to walk)--- we got the VIP treatment because "laowai" came from far away and so didn't need any more walking!
Baodingshan contained the best the the biggest collection of sculptures in Dazu county. The work was attributed to a monk called Zhao Zhifeng in the Southern Song Dynasty (1174-1252AD). All the cliff sculptures were located along a horseshoe-shaped hillside, and there was a story or lesson on Buddhism for each set of statues.
After lunch at a CITS-designated restaurant, we went to Beishan, another area with a large collection of sculptures which were carved out since the Tang Dynasty. No story behind each set of statues here, but each statue was unique. They belonged to either Buddhism or Taoism. However, many of the Buddhist ones had the head chopped off because there were fights between Buddhists and Taoists at the time, and many were damaged as the Taoists won in the end. It was sad that many of these magnificant statues were damaged for such stupid reasons. Fortunately that was before the time of the Baodingshan sculptures were carved out.
After another 2-hour scary drive, we arrived back in Chongqing, just in time for the rush-hour traffic--- complete chaos but part of it was due to all the new road construction work. In theory it should improve in the next few years!
Eventually we arrived at E'Ling Park, and first we visited the former residence of Chiang Kai-Shek and Soong Mei-Ling. There were some real precious black and white photos of Chiang with Chairman Mao, the Soong sisters, etc. We then went to the pavilion to get a view of Chongqing. Finally we went to the Three Gorges exhibition hall--- along the corridor round the courtyard was a 100m long painting depicting all the scenary of the Yangtze River from Chongqing to Yichang, with lines showing the water level after the completion of the Three Gorges Dam in 2003.
Hotpot dinner at the hotel since Irene arranged that for us (RMB60 per person including drinks). The soup broth came in two versions--- a mild one and a spicy one. There were about 15 different dishes on the table also, ranging from fish and meat to vegetables, and so it's fun to cook the food ourselves. The spicy broth was not too bad at the beginning, but with the peppercorns and spices in it, the soup base got more and more spicy, and the colour turned into a fiery red in the end! Definitely too hot even just dipping the vegetable in the soup for a second. Still, it was absolute fun!
Fell asleep almost as soon as I got into bed---- it was hard work today. I was glad to get out of Chongqing the next morning....
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