Where In The World Is Evan?

Today I got a bus down to Leshan, with my friends Jon and Olen, to see the world’s largest Buddha—71 meters tall, and carved into the side of a cliff. The giant Buddha itself was a little disappointing, however, the surrounding gardens, temples, and caves were quite interesting. Olen, being himself, had to pose beside the sign at the Pond of Vanquishing Demons that said “No Sprinkling’, doing just that of course!

Early on we found a seemingly abandoned staircase leading up through heavy undergrowth towards the top of a small mountain. Following the stairs as high as they would go we found what appeared to be a wall of nipples carved into the mountain. It wasn’t until we started to descend that we realised that we had climbed out onto the head of a giant reclining Buddha—the nipples were in fact stylized hair.
On our way out of the park we came upon a disused temple, where a Chinese maintenance woman was sleeping on the job. Surprisingly she didn’t see the humor in us taking a photo, and in true Chinese entrepreneurial style, demanding money to delete it. In the end, Olen accidentally deleted the photo, in an attempt to mollify the enraged woman, however, this had little effect and Olen had to flee down the mountain with her in hot pursuit.

After departing the park grounds we stopped for a few drinks of baijiu—the local Chinese spirit, which ranges from 50% to 58% alcohol. More than anything else I’ve ever experienced, baijiu makes me stupid. We started off slow, downing a couple of small bottles out of whiskey tumblers, however, this only whet our appetites for more. Stepping up a little, we started ordering rounds of medicine baijiu, which comes in huge glass flagons filled with all sorts of pickled oddities—some ever contain snakes, starfish, and seahorses!

In our subsequently incapacitated state we headed off to find the bus back to Chengdu for a friend’s birthday party. On the way, however, we soon came upon a parking area for bicycle rickshaws—the owners being some distance away loitering by the exit gate waiting for potential fares. In a sudden stroke of drunken genius we jumped into one and took off down the dirt road. We set off at a good pace, putting about 50 meters behind us before the owner realised what we had done. With Olen behind the wheel, and Jon and I in the back our pace quickly tapered off. Owing to our drunkenness the owner caught up, but luckily I was able to switch places with Olen and speed off before we were apprehended. Veering across traffic at the next intersection we proceeded to flee down a main road. After riding as hard as I could, and suffering an attempted wedgie, I switched with Jon. Jon peddled on for a while, but the owner was gaining ground, so to encourage him to go faster Olen and I jointly returned the wedgie that Jon had attempted on me earlier. Not knowing our own strength, however, Jon’s underwear ripped in two, with the removed half being stuffed down the back of his shirt. The shock, and doubtless pain, caused Jon to swerve across the lane of oncoming traffic and crash into a tree. Dropping 10 yuan (five times the fare) into the basket on the front of the undamaged rickshaw we hurried across the road and jumped into a mini van that drove us to bus stop for the bus back to Chengdu.

Arriving home much later than we had planned, Olen and I met up with Sergio, and headed off to the 30th birthday party of Lisa, a mutual friend. We arrived two and a half hours late for dinner at the 5 star hotel, however, we were just in time for cake. Shortly after our arrival the party shifted gears as we all headed down to the local Irish pub for more drinking.

At this point I should note that neither Olen nor Sergio live in Chengdu, so when they come to visit I put them up in the spare room. Considering this, the two of them were left in a bit of a pickle as I conspicuously disappeared early in the night with the birthday girl. Having neither keys nor a will to interrupt by simply turning up at my apartment and beating on the door, they both had to fend for themselves for the night—to varying degrees of success, with stories varying greatly between participants.

In all it was a day to remember

Check out both the Leshan and Lisa’s birthday photo galleries.