Buddhist Statue
Modern Monk
Once there we attempted to find the Fuhu Monastery on our own but to no avail. Thankfully my Chinese skills came in handy, and we found Monks who embraced worldly possessions and modern technology by graciously using my phone to talk to my girlfriend. I found it extremely hard to understand him, as people from Sichuan Province tend to have a different dialect that is even listed as being in a separate family from Mandarin. We offered the men some chocolate gummies as thanks, and they again accepted without thinking about it. Talk about awesome monks!
Fat Buddha
Upon arriving at the monastery, we found out it was for women only, but they allow anyone to stay. We were first assaulted by the man at the ticket office, who insisted it was 120rmb per person to sleep there. After calling my girlfriend and attempting to negotiate with this idiot, we entered on our own and found a female monk who told us it was 50rmb a night, like the Lonely Planet book said. We got a room for the girls, and 2 rooms for us 3 guys. Our rooms were quite nice, as I was expecting no electricity or running water, but to my surprise we even had working air conditioning. I guess they are more modern than other places as they are only a 15 minute walk from the base of the mountain, and thus much more frequented by visitors and exposed to the outside world.
Nasty Breakfast
At 6:30 in the morning, we joined the monks for breakfast for 10rmb each. The breakfast was honestly the worst food I’ve ever eaten in my life. It was rice in water (a real Chinese dish which tastes really good when sugar is added.. there was no sugar here), steamed buns with nothing inside, and some spicy thing you put in the rice to make it remotely edible. After suffering through this terrible meal, we quickly thanked them and retreated back to our rooms to prepare for the hike.
Monastery
Emma decided to stay, so the four of us packed up and left to hike up the mountain. It began raining as soon as we got down the steps of the monastery, so we went back because as it was, we only had 2 hours to go up and 2 hours to get back before we had to leave for Leshan. In the end, we joined the monks for their morning service at 9am, and it lasted an hour. You normally donate a small amount to go inside. I gave them a 100rmb note, and they were very happy until they realized I wanted change. I only wanted to give them the 6rmb minimum as we’d already paid 50 each to sleep there the night before. They got me change and the world kept on going.After the morning service, we left for Leshan via the same van we used to get into town.
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