600 Year Old Buddha Carving

After 25 years and 50+ trips through out China I have had many experiences and thousands of stories to tell. One of them is the time I was hiking through the hills outside of Guilin in south China. We came upon some young men working at tearing down a very old temple that was no longer in use in order to make way for a new road that would be going through. They had built a fire to burn the old wooden parts of the temple and were knocking down the stone parts by hand. On the curved peaks of the roofs are often carved animals or other carvings. The Buddha above was just laying on the ground with other wooden parts all with worm holes and rotting wood. I saved the piece above and gave the workers about $10 for beer money which they were very pleased. "One man's trash; is another man's Treasure". The temple was over 600 years old so probably the Monk is that old too. When touring China be on the look out for those small treasures that make good memories. In another blog page you will read about my collection of hand chiseled tea pots out of a rare stone that was once more valuable than gold. That was over 15 years ago and I have never found them again anywhere in China. Rare finds are yours if you look closely. Tours to China is my business; but over time I have become to love the country and the people even more.