Visiting Leshan Buddha: Boat Tour or Walking Tour?

When planning a trip to Leshan Buddha, you will encounter a choice between two different ways of visiting Leshan Buddha. One is to walk the park of Leshan Buddha Statue and the other is to use a boat to see the Buddha Statue. Each will require separate entrance ticket. We have listed below the key factors of visiting Leshan Buddha by both ways.

For Boat Tour it is short in comparison and you don’t need to wait in queues for long time and no need to do any walking. In fact if there are more people then the waiting time may even be less since a boat will be filled up quicker if there are more people using the boat. You don’t need to worry about overcrowds on a boat because only each boat has a limit of number of people to be allowed. The best benefit of using a boat is having the best photo spot of Leshan Buddha Statue by having a central position that is around 40 to 60m in front of the Buddha above the river. Although a boat trip won’t allow you to get very close to the Buddha. It also has limited time stopped by front of the statue (around 10-15min in general). And you will also miss the temple and the garden inside the park of Leshan Buddha. Another factor of boat trip not to be ignored is if you are traveling during flooding season (normally July, August) the boat tours may not be available due to rapid water. During dry seasons some ports may have too shallow water to park the boats so please be aware of this when you plan a boat trip in Leshan Buddha.

For Walking Tour inside Leshan Buddha Park it usually takes longer time than boat trip at around 2-4 hours depending on the crowds, season and how much you want to see in the park. You may get to multiple locations to take photos of the Buddha from its north, south and west by its feet. You may also walk the stairs by the river side and get close to the statue. You also get the chance to see Linyun Temple inside the park as well as Dongpo Garden, Lingbao Pagoda, and another park called “East Buddha World” that requires extra fee to get in. If you are not traveling during busy season then you may walk the park with flexibility and choose where to go as you wish. Although you may often encounter long queues when you check into the park. During busy travel season the long queue to the foot of Buddha will make your waiting time from 45min to as long as 2h especially during July and August. Further more, from the car park to the entrance of the park there is a 2km that you will either need to walk or use a 30-yuan golf car to cover the distance.

Our recommendations:

For busy travel season, the experience of waiting in queues for hours is not good especially when it is July and August when temperature may reach up to 35C outdoor. We recommend you to use boat trip during busy seasons to have better experience although you could still be queuing for getting on the boat but this is largely sheltered. The walking inside the park of Leshan will be on stairs and some parts are quite steep by the river side. It’s not necessary to do both.