Giant Buddha is by boat as it is so big, in fact it is the biggest in the world! So we bought our tickets boarded our boat looked over the harbour only to see another one of these tour boats on fire! A quick prayer to Buddha and a big fingers crossed was the immediate things that sprung to mine! Thankfully the fire was quickly being put out and nobody looked like they were injured so all was good. We set sail with a little trepidation but our fears were soon quelled as the engine sounded sweet as nut and was flying upstream towards Buddha. It is impossible to describe the size of it, it is cut into a mountain and I think is around 300 ish foot high, its incredible, there are also other carving in the mountain but the Buddha is certainly impressive and the detail and colours are simply wonderful. There was a huge sight of relief as we safely docked and got our feet back on dry land!

From here

we made our way up to the main entrance of the park, it was the usual scrum for tickets as the place was overrun with tour groups - I know we were in a group but we sure as hell aren’t like the Chinese ones! They are unbelievable, there are so many different groups and they all have their microphones or loudhailers turned up as loud as they’ll go, as if that isn’t bad enough you have to keep out of the way of their bloody flags that they wave around manically, the noise level and distortion is incredible, it does get a bit on top to say the least - for such small people they can’t half make a racket!
We decided to give the walk past Buddha a miss due to the overwhelming crowds and hours of pushing and shoving that would have been in store for us, so we headed off the main paths and managed to find some beautiful peace and quite - pure heaven!