We arrived from Yunan Province after 24 hours of buses and trains. Chengdu is a large city, which rarely sees sun during the fall and winter months - very grey.  There are only two "official" ways to get to Tibet from China proper.  One is by plane from Chengdu and the other a grueling 30-50 hour bus ride from Golmud in the north.  Both require the purchase of a packaged tour, insurance and various other charges. 

Their is a large river that runs through the city with ample space for people to sit around and chat, do their morning exercises or just sip a cup of tea.  i found it a perfect place for morning runs. 

After a day of running errands in the city we headed to Leshan to see the Grand Buddha, the world's largest.  It is 71 meters tall, and he's sitting down!  his big toe is 8.5 meters long and his ears 7 meters - one big, big Buddha. The Grand Buddha was carved into a mountain side beginning in 713 Ad and completed 90 years later.  the monk who engineered the project gouged his eyes out to protect funding for the project.  WOW!

We hiked around the surrounding area which displayed over 3000 other Buddha's from around asia, making our way toward the big one.  It was really,  really big.  The first view was of his head and then we climbed down the side of the mountain to his feet.  Big, Big, Big.  Although a tourist trap, it was fun to see and now I can lay claim to seeing the largest Buddha in the world!  Certainly one of my greater accomplishments! 

The next day we headed north to Songpan, a small tibetan town known by travelers for it's horse trekking in the mountains nearby.  We broke through the city smog and grayness into beautiful blue skies - oh yea! On the bus ride up were a couple from Israel, two guys form Germany and a French girl.  We all decided that the trek would be fun together so we bought some supplies and headed off the next morning.

The horses looked a bit small for a couple of us, but they assured us that it was ok.  Our bedding was thrown never the saddle which made the seat a thousand times more comfortable than the seats on the bus ride up - and how about that leg room.  (many of the china buses had absolutely no leg room and metal backed seats to boot - i was usually left with no feeling in my ass and extreme pain in my knees).

to say that I am an amateur rider is giving me too much credit.  When the horse began trotting I would bounce up and down and side to side, cheap entertainment for those behind me.  Apparently some horses run rather flat and some not.  My was of the not variety, but after a couple of days I learned how to keep my bouncing to a minimum.

The next three days took us over numerous mountains and to various "hot" springs (not so hot!), mountain lakes (freezing) and some great scenery composed of pine trees and a beautiful mix of red, yellow and orange bushes scattered across the hillside.  the horses worked plenty hard to get us over the mountains.  I felt guilty when you could see that they were covered in sweat and breathing heavily.  They got a break coming down the mountains however, as the terrain was to steep for us to ride.  This helped them rest and helped with my guilt.

For the most part we had beautiful weather during the day, but clouds and rain at night.  It would have been nice to have seen the stars.  We caught a short glimpse one night, before the clouds took back over, and it was a beautiful sight.

A way to long and uncomfortable bus ride took us back to Chengdu.  A day of rest and errands got us ready to head for the roof of the world - Tibet.