DAZU GROTTOES

Yay!  I actually got 8 hours sleep.  Today we have a tour to the Dazu Grottoes.  We met with our tour guide, Windy, and our driver, Mr. Luo.  It will take 2½ hours to drive to Dazu County.  During the ride, we saw farms along each side of the highway.  The farmers grow grape seed plants to make grape seed oil.  The farmers do not own their land but the government gives each family a certain amount of money to build their homes on it.  We drove through a few tunnels.  The tunnels are built through the mountains.  The longest tunnel in CQ is about 10 km long.  We didn’t go through that one but the longest one we travelled through today was about 3.8 km.    Some other facts we learned:

·         CQ is built on mountains and partially surrounded by the Yangtze and Jialing rivers.  It is known as a "mountain city" and a "city on rivers".
 

·         You do not see many bicycles in CQ.  It is the only city in China without bicycles because CQ has too many hills and the city is too big.

·         One of its nickname is “fog city” as CQ is covered in heavy fog with over 100 days of fog per year.

·         Another nickname is “furnace city” as the summer days are hot and humid with temperatures reaching over 40°C.

We decided to have lunch first before touring the Grottoes.  We enjoyed a 10 course meal at Dao Xiong Twun Restaurant (pronounced dow sheng chwun).   They only served one Sichuan dish (a chicken dish) that was hot and spicy...the rest were mild (thank goodness).

We arrived at the Dazu Grottoes.  They are rock carvings of religious sculptures and influenced by Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist beliefs.  They date from the 9^th to 13th centuries.  The Dazu Rock Carvings contain some 50,000 statues with over 100,000 Chinese characters forming inscriptions and epigraphs.  The Dazu Rock Carvings are listed as a World Heritage Site.   Our walk through the Grottoes was long and hilly.  It was pretty tough for David and Mr. and Mrs. Nottingham.  We paid to have an open cart ride back to the entrance (much like a golf cart but bigger and can hold around a dozen people).  The trick was to try and hop on the cart before hundreds of other tourists do.  It was hilarious as we all rushed to the cart to hop on.  We all managed to get on board.

Now for the long drive back.  We met up with rush hour and crazy drivers.  We are in a 2 lane highway with cars driving on the shoulder to cut in.  Drivers will do whatever it takes to get ahead of the next car.  Remember I told you about the cars narrowly missing pedestrians?  It's the same with cars.  I looked out the window to my right only to see a truck's mirror inches from me.  Honking is a common sound on the road.

We had a quick dinner at a restaurant next to our hotel.  It's time for bed soon as we have another full day tour tomorrow.  Good night!

 

MADI’S CORNER:

 I woke up early, again!  I had breakfast with all the girls.  Then I got onto the bus with our guide, Windy, and our driver, Mr. Luo.  The ride to the place where we were going was 2 hours.  I played on my DSI on the bus.  The place we went to was called Dazu Grottoes.  At around 12:00 we had lunch and then we all had to go to the washroom.  There were squat toilets and in my mind I’m like “Why, why does it have to be squat toilets!”  It was a first time experience.  It was torture.  After lunch, we went to the Dazu Grottoes.  At the Grottoes, there were rock carvings.  We walked around there for awhile.  There were 2 parts, Heaven and Hell (p.s. I am not swearing).  After the Grottoes, we just had dinner then we all went shopping for food and drinks.  Then we went to sleep later after we were finished.  End of day!