The rest of Chengdu

Went for a rather violent massage - 100 minutes for about 4 pounds! Started with feet soaking and reflexology, then moved on to leg and arm slapping and then a head massage that felt like your head was getting crushed! Very good though!
The next day we visited the largest Buddha in the world with Martin (a swiss teacher who had sailed on a cargo ship from Southern Italy to Singapore). Well, the Buddha must be the biggest Buddha as about 12 people could fit on his big toe nail. We only had 3 hours, but there was a lovely mountainous forest park around it to visit.
Forget to tell you about our first night in Chengdu! We decided to walk round the town and along the river bank, but unfortunately we got a bit lost. We stopped to ask directions from a lady with a dog and before we knew it there was a crowd (typical enthusiastuc Chinese!-love to crowd round anything, especially when it's got nothing to do with them). We ended up being led back to the hostel by a man and his wife, but when we thought we knew where we were we said thankyou and parted ways. When we got round the next corner though, we realised we had gone one road too far. At this point, the man from the hostel appeared with the man and his wife that had led us down the road. They had been to the hostel and told them we were lost and they had sent out a search party!!!! (a Noel Lambert moment-bless him).