Buddhism made one of history’s great road trips, travelling from India all the way to China, where it became the dominant religion around the 7th century, eventually reaching Japan where it evolved into Zen. We decided to follow a small part of that journey by visiting the remarkable Dazu Rock Carvings near Chongqing.

The Dazu area contains over 60,000 carved stone figures spread across 76 sites, but we focused on the two most famous: Baodingshan and Beishan.
Baodingshan is the showstopper. Every carving here was executed between 1174 and 1252 under the direction of a single monk called Zhao Zhifeng. The statues range from a giant serene reclining Buddha to vivid scenes of heaven and hell that suggest medieval monks took moral instruction very seriously indeed 😉

Beishan is older and more delicate. The carvings here span from 892 to 1162 AD and was actually a General’s side project. A local military general named Wei Junjing apparently decided that funding exquisite religious art to gain some good karma was better than fighting!

What makes Dazu amazing is that the carvings aren’t purely Buddhist, they represent a remarkable synthesis of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism, all three of China’s great belief systems sharing the same cliff face in apparent harmony. Something today’s world could perhaps take note of! ...

Chongqing, built across steep hills at the meeting point of the Yangtze and Jialing rivers, is a city of endless skyscrapers with enough neon lights to be visible from space!

They totally light up Hongya Cave, a recreation of the old stilt houses that once lined Chongqing’s riverfront. The electricity bill must be terrifying 😉 ...

We love our karsts, so had to check out the Wulong Karst National Geo Park, where we visited the famous Three Natural Bridges and the enormous Furong Cave. 🏞️

The Three Natural Bridges are the highest natural bridges in the world. Formed naturally over millions of years, they were also used as filming locations for Transformers: Age of Extinction, because even giant alien robots need scenic backdrops 😉 🤖

Meanwhile Furong Cave, which stretches for over 2.5 km, is packed with bizarre rock formations, glittering stalactites, and enough dramatic lighting to make us feel like we were wandering through the secret lair of a Bond villain! 🥷
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#wulongkarst #threenaturalbridges #furongcave #transformers ...

After seeing the amazing Buddhas in Luoyang, Jessy wanted to the see the largest one in the world in Leshan. Carved over 1,200 years ago, it is over 24 stories high!🔝

Legend says a monk named Haitong started carving the Buddha in 713 AD to calm the treacherous river currents that were sinking trading ships below. The crazy part is that it actually worked. During the 90-year construction, so much rock and debris was chiseled off the cliff and dropped into the water below that it altered the riverbed and smoothed out the dangerous currents! 💧

Not content with just one oversized Buddha, we also wandered through the nearby Oriental Buddha Park, which feels like someone decided to build an entire theme park dedicated to enlightenment ;-)🧘‍♀️
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#leshanbuddha #giantbuddha #leshan #orientalbuddhapark ...

We love pandas, so naturally we made a pilgrimage to the world-famous Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, which has multiple nurseries to breed them. 🐼

Now, adult pandas are cute and all, but they’re giant, furry couch potatoes who only wake up to eat bamboo and immediately pass out again 😉 We were on a mission to see the cubs: the chaotic, tumbling fluffballs. The universe smiled upon us and we hit the jackpot! We got to watch a couple of 9-month-old cubs clumsily wrestling each other, plus another one relentlessly annoying its poor, exhausted mother.

Bonus surprise, Red pandas! I had no idea these little cinnamon-colored furry creatures even existed, so discovering them scampering around was the cherry on top of our pandascapade. 🍒
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#panda #chengdu #redpanda ...

In 221 BC, Qin Shi Huang unified the warring states and created China, a vast empire in his name. But his biggest obsession wasn’t his earthly empire, it was securing his reign in the afterlife. Terrified of evil spirits and the countless enemies he’d made during his conquests, he decided he needed some security 🙂

Enter the Terracotta Army, the most extravagant tomb guard in human history. To protect his sprawling 100 sq km necropolis, the Emperor ordered the creation of an estimated 8,000 life-sized clay soldiers, accompanied by hundreds of chariots and cavalry horses. Amazingly, artisans crafted each warrior with unique facial features, hairstyles, and expressions. Complete with actual, lethally sharp bronze weapons, they were arranged in strict military formation, forever standing at attention, a spectacular sight to see today. They were accompanied by two amazingly detailed bronze chariots that prove that Qin-era artisans weren’t just talented sculptors, but masters of advanced metallurgy.

At the heart of this afterlife city lies his sealed burial chamber. Ancient texts describe an underground palace featuring a pearl-studded cosmic ceiling and rivers of liquid mercury, a detail confirmed by highly toxic soil tests today. We were wondering why the archaeologists hadn’t cracked it open, but apparently the preservation technology isn’t ready 🙂 When the clay soldiers were discovered in 1974, their vibrant paint disintegrated within minutes of hitting modern air. For now, the Emperor remains perfectly undisturbed. I guess we have to come back when they crack the tomb open. Can’t wait!!!
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#terracottawarriors #terracottaarmy #xian ...

Luoyang is an ancient city often called the birthplace of Chinese civilization with a beautifully restored old town and the spectacular Longmen Grottoes.

The grottoes feature over 100,000 Buddhist statues dating back to the 6th and 7th centuries carved straight into the limestone cliffs. Some are so massive you can spot them from across the river!

We also visited 2,500-year-old burial pits of high-ranking royalty, complete with chariots and sacrificial horses carefully arranged as if they were still ready to roll. Ancient afterlife planning was clearly very… thorough 😉 ...

We decided to dodge the selfie-stick swarms and hike the uncrowded Jinshanling section of the Great Wall of China. We managed to conquer over a kilometer of it, which, in “ancient, wildly uneven stairs” math, basically counts as a half marathon!

Along the way, we learned the most baffling architectural secret: the Wall is essentially held together by rice! During the Ming Dynasty, builders created a super-mortar by mixing slaked lime with sticky rice soup. One of history’s most formidable military defenses is waterproof, earthquake-resistant, and secretly a giant bowl of soup!

Standing on this marvel of culinary engineering advertised as one of 7 Wonders of the World, I pulled up the list and realized that I had visited all of the 7 wonders over the years. Misspent adulthood I guess 😉 ...

We had to leave Indonesia to renew our visas so we decided to fly to China. In Beijing we visited the famous Tiananmen Square, as well as the palaces of the Ming and Qing dynasties at the Forbidden City and the summer palace.

Legend says the Forbidden city complex has exactly 9,999.5 rooms. The half room because in Chinese mythology, the Emperor of Heaven has exactly 10,000 rooms. The earthly emperor, wanting to show just a smidge of humility so he built half a room less to avoid upstaging the gods 😉 ...