Keep him on the leash!

Today’s adventure: Go and see some Buddha!
And it went all right. I met 3 Chinese students who were also going to visit the stuff, and I kind of got stucked with them all day long. The girl in the group came to me asking if I wanted to walk together to the grottoes, so I said ok,  so nice I am. And then the photo sessions started, they all wanted pictures with me, especially her. So every 5 min we were stopping to take pictures. Very tiring. But it was ok until we reached a platform with lots of Chinese girls… One asked the one accompanying me if she could have a picture with me, and suddenly a crowd was around me and I was flashed at least 500 times (I may slightly exaggerate).

But then came lunch time and I was relieved that we found a abandoned table away from the crowds, and even more relieved when she insisted to share their picnic with me (they even had a fried duck!).

So I finally was able to turn off my constant vigilance against Chinese weirdness; to the point when she offered me the head of the damn duck, with its beak wide open and its eyes staring at me.
And she insisted, as apparently it was 很好吃 (very good).

So I had to eat the damn thing. Lessons to learn: “always stay vigilant by all means”.

Apart from that the Buddha and his cousin Bodhisattva were quite truly impressive. It was all carved (or it started) around 550 AD! And the biggest one (25 meters high) stands in the middle of a cliff which is already high enough to give me an impressive vertigo. These Buddhist monks had it! Also it is said to have been funded by rich merchants on the Silk Road who had a permanent residency in Tianshui. Cool eh?

I also got a present from the girl: a Buddha bronze medal with my name engraved on it. It was still a nice day after all.

And now I am exhausted because I had to get up early again this morning, so tomorrow I shall finally relax.

And tomorrow I’ll go to Zhangye, continuing my Silk Road experience…