They worship in the Buddha!

Baguashan Mountain is the main tourist attraction in the city of Changhua, I try to avoid the tourist sites but sometimes you just got to take a look and see it for yourself, being only twenty minutes away from my home I was going to bump into the Buddha at some point.

When you look around Taiwan you would notice that the buddhist temples tend to look the same; same colour scheme, same Chinese dragon designs, but these are mostly street temples, sometimes you do find the odd unique temple that stands out from the rest, in the north of Taiwan you would find a temple that is inside a cave whilst here on the west coast of Taiwan you would find a small temple inside the Buddha statue.

Here is some information about the statue itself; the great Buddha statue is one of the tallest Buddha statues in Taiwan and in the world reaching a height of 24m high but when it was build in 1961 it was then actually one of the biggest in Asia, the statue faces westwards overlooking the roof tops of Changhua City, Inside the Buddha you would be able to find the temple on the lower floor as well as several other floors working it's way up through the Buddha's body to his head, telling the story of the Buddha and how he reached his enlightment.

As I wondered into the side door of the temple, it was fairly cramped, the two staircases were held up by statues of elephants and the smell of incense, which was a familiar smell in temples tickled my nose, I gazed at the golden statue of the Buddha, over the sea of candlelights as the orange glow of the flames flickered against the walls of the room, the odd devoted Buddhist would bow to the statue with their two hands together, each taking turns to show their respect to the man they worship, I tried to get a photo of someone worshiping but I was met by the gaze of an elder woman watching me, she made me feel uncomfortable as if she didn't want me to take a photo of her, she didn't say anything but it was as if she was sending the message telepathically.

The floors above the little temple were not that impressive, it told the story of the Buddha which in itself is interesting but the ornaments that were used were old, exhausted and faded, the paint of some of the ornaments was pealing which gave it a less of an exciting feel, they could do so much better with it, but it is still worth the effort to have a look if you are in the area.

7

4

3