Chengdu
I’m amazed at how well I slept last night, the bed felt like heaven. I’m still waking up fairly early in the morning, although I didn’t wake up at 3am this morning like I have been. Although it was raining this morning, I decided to go out and explore anyway.
Taking a taxi, I arrived at Wenshu Temple before the massive loads of tour buses, which was fantastic timing on my part! lol. The Wenshu Temple dates back to the Tang Dynasty and is the largest and best preserved Buddhist temple in Chengdu. The grounds were gorgeous, very green and very lush.
As I wandered through the grounds and around the buildings, chanting could be heard from monks and Buddhist followers. Although I wonder what they think of tourists walking around their temple, taking pictures when they’re trying to worship. Yes, I was one of those tourists, but I felt rather odd when I was there.
Leaving the temple, I opted to visit another temple site in the city, the Qingyang Gong Temple (Green Ram Temple). Qingyang Gong is the oldest Taoist temple in Chengdu. Having just been to the Buddhist Temple, it was interesting to see the differences between the 2. Unlike the Buddhist statues the Taoists had statues of what appeared to be goats placed outside one of the temple buildings. As I moved closer I noticed that there was a huge crowd of people around one of the goats and they were all trying to touch and rub the statue. I couldn’t help wondering what they thought this goat was going to do for them…
I didn’t stay very long at the Taoist temple. By that time I was feeling ill, as both my chest and head hurt. I decided to flag down a taxi and head back to my hostel, where I laid down for a nap and didn’t wake up until 5hrs later! haha
Tomorrow morning I head to Chongqing where I board a boat for a 4day cruise down the Yangtze River, through the Three Gorges to Wuhan. This is going to be my big splurge, as I still cannot get into Tibet.
Tags: buddist, chengdu, china, sichuan, taoist, temples, yangatze
