Day 48 - Headed for Dazu

We woke up to our wake up call this morning - where Adam was greeted with an automated Chinese voice message, saying something like "Time to wake up"! Our adventure with buses continued today - ironically the one bus we decided to try among the 20 or so passing by happened to be going to the long-distance bus station, exactly where we wanted to go! Only, when we arrived at the bus station we realised we had been taken to the long-distance bus station we didn't know existed and that was on the opposite side of town we wanted to go to. The upside of this meant we got to see Chongqing that exists on the other side of the Jialing river! Unfortunately this one and a half hour diversion made our 6.30am wake up semi-redundant!

Boarding another bus, we made it to the station we needed to be at to get to Dazu, from where we caught another bus to Baoding. Dazu's countryside is scattered with caves, sculptures and grotto paintings of Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucianist origin - and Baoding Shan (Treasured Summit Hill) is where the most interesting of these exist dating from the 9th - 13th centuries. At the entrance was a beautiful pagodao of similar age to the carvings.
Arriving at Baoding we were awestruck by what was before us - the rock carvings were in a remarkable state considering their age and the environment that they exist in . The carvings and grottoes are enormous and with such detail that clearly took years to complete (it is estimated that these particular ones took 70 years between 1179-1249) - this area was made a UNESCO protected site in 1999. The intriging aspect of Baoding Shan is that the artists had a preconceived plan and incorporated the natural features of the environment into their work - such as the "Nine Dragons Bathing the Prince", a rock carving that utilises a natural spring. We spent hours taking in the sights, of particular note was the 31m long and 5m high reclining Buddha depicted entering nirvana.
The other highlight was a cave that housed the oldest of the carvings - entering the cave the temperature drops like entering another world. The carvings were blackend by time, in contrast to the ones outside, and are so revered that we couldn't get photos - guess you'd better come and see them for yourselves! The detail and the symetry of the carvings really blew us away, especially when we thought about the equipment they would have been using - we wondered if people these days would have such perserverance. One tiny mistake could blow decades of work!

We would tell you about all the carvings but that would take pages, so we'll let you look at the photos! After the carvings we ambled along the streets and through the stalls where we made a few small purchases - Liv got a gorgeous wee turtle pendant carved out of a two-toned rock, which she wears around her wrist. Adam bought a little sumin' sumin' for a certain little bro.

We got back (eventually, after, once again getting lost and getting an unplanned tour of Dazu city) to the bus station for our 2 and a half hour ride back to Chongqing, where we grabbed a quick feed, which turned out to be something different for a change - fried potato chips with spicy red chilli (instead of the usual shredded potato with green chilli).

Back at the hotel we arranged our 5.30 am wakeup call and packed our bags and lunch for the long day cruising the Yangzi tomorrow.

Adlibing it amongst the ancient grotto cliff carvings.