Even though I am usually on the normal tourist-tracks when I visit a new place, I also like to explore the lesser-known, less touristy places as much as I can. I like the fact that these off-the-beaten-path places offer different views, different vibes and very often, fewer crowd. The Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff in Sichuan is one such place I visited recently.
Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff
The Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff (千佛岩) in Jiajiang county (夹江) Chengdu is a 2A rated attractions by the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) based on the code “Categories and Rating Standard of Tourist Attractions” (1A being the lowest and 5A the highest or the best). There is very little information on the Cliff available on the internet which made it quite mysterious and the photographs I saw intrigued me. Even our driver didn’t really know how to get there exactly. We had to drive through some industrial park at some point.
When we finally reached the “front gate” we had to walk through a small village first.
First signage of the Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff
No Thousand Buddha Cliff in sight. Just keep walking
There’s no signage whatsoever so we just kept going straight. I had to ask a local which way it was – just in case. I later got to know that the street inside the village linking to the Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff was where scholars gather in the ancient times.
Ancient Street
At the end of the street, we saw a gate / gantry. After passing through the gate, we saw the Qingyi river on the left, it was a pleasant sight.
Qingyi River
There are a couple of stone signs along the way which tried to provide short explanations of what the Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff is about. Apparently the statues on the rocks were carved by the Chinese commoners during the prosperous Tang Dynasty and there are more than 2,470 statues within 162 niches. These carvings were dated earlier than the Leshan Giant Buddha.
After paying for our tickets at RMB5 each, we proceeded inside the park towards the Cliff.
Ticket office
Road leading to the Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff
Entrance to Thousand Buddha Cliff
Once we stand beside the Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff, we were very impressed – statues and statues of Buddha carved inside the rock. Although many had missing heads, a lot are still intact. There’s a whole lot of variety of Buddha with varied postures and gorgeous colours. The workmanship was intricate and displayed the superior skills of the stone sculpture back in the ancient time.
The biggest sculpture is a Buddha at about 2.7 metre tall. People still pray to some of these Buddha and there’s an old lady selling incense and joss-sticks at the Pavilion.
Biggest Buddha at the Thousand Buddha Cliff
After we prayed and burned some incense we walked on and came to a small wooden bridge erected right next to the cliff. Even along these cliffs, there are carvings, some of Buddhas and others ancient Chinese phrases.
There is also a temple at the top of the mountain which we didn’t visit because it was getting late and dark.
Photo by: Celine Yeo
On our way back out, we saw one last sign bidding us farewell and reminded us of where we were and what we had just seen.
We took more than an hour to walk around the whole place, which is about 600m long. We took our time to admire the carvings and surroundings. There were like 15 local (mainland Chinese) tourists the whole time we were there and we were the only foreigners!
The Jiajiang Thousand Buddha Cliff was quiet and peaceful, a very welcomed change from the rest of China tourist sights. I also think that this is a beautiful place with some amazing history and stories waiting to be told. This attraction certainly has a lot more potential than what it is now and I hope more travellers will pay a visit before it becomes more popular and crowded. It is definitely one of my favourites.
Also read about our visit to the Leshan Giant Buddha here. What are your favourite off-the-beaten-path attractions?
For other things to do in Chengdu, click here.
wow – gorgeous photos…. I’m holidaying through this post!!
I travel for you 🙂
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Its great to go on the off-beaten path sometimes and explore things without hoards of toursits everywhere! Great photos!
Thank you! We loved how peaceful the place was.
Really great post about a place I had no idea existed… and it seems I’m not the only one! China’s firmly on my bucket list.
Not many people know about this place. I only came across it after some thorough research before our trip 🙂
What a great find. I have not seen so many buddha carvings like that. I would love to see it in person to check out the details. I pinned it for later.
Thank you Anisa! It is something quite different and so glad we made the trip there.
Love getting off the tourist path, it isn’t always easy but it’s usually worth it. I’m trying to plan a trip to China later this year, so I’ll have to bookmark this post.
That’s really true, especially in China where there’s people EVERYWHERE. My friends and I enjoyed ourselves thoroughly here 🙂
Wow, seriously offbeat, peaceful and quiet. Never heard of this place before. The pathway is so amazing giving beautiful landscape views. Lovely read.
Thank you! 🙂 The place is not big but definitely worthwhile to take a walk and check out the carvings. Also to take some photos – my friends and I were goofing around since there’s was nobody else there.
Such an interesting place to visit field with amazing history! The walk there seems pretty interesting too. It looks like there were few tourists visiting.
Very few tourists, maybe less than 10 in total excluding us so almost had the whole place to ourselves 🙂
What an incredible place to visit! China is absolutely on my travel bucket list.
Such a beautiful place.I mostly like the buddha carvings and how peaceful the place is. This is next on my bucket list no doubt!
The Buddha carvings were beautiful and very intricate.
I love off the beaten path places! Thanks for shedding light on this place! The less tourists, the more you get to appreciate the place for yourself!
Couldn’t agree more – we could spend our own sweet time exploring the area and admiring the carvings.
My goodness! <3 What an incredible experience this must have been. Your photos are stunning 🙂 I haven't been to China yet but I will definitely try to make it here thanks to your post!
Thank you Steph! We absolutely loved it, maybe more than the Big Buddha since it was so quiet.
That is a lot carvings! I am like you because I love to visit places that most people overlook. The next question that always follows is where was this? Nice pictures as well!
This is in Jiajiang county, within Sichuan. Make it a day trip with the Leshan Giant Buddha which is about an hour’s drive away.
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