can be leisurely done in couple of hours

Did this as a day trip from Chengdu. Drive down in the morning. Would recommend entering the site before 10am. By noon the line up to go down to the platform at the feet was already very long. This was on a Saturday. Otherwise, very enjoyable site. Not counting the trip down to the feet of Buddha and up, the rest of the site can be leisurely done in a couple of hours. Two see the entire statue from the front, the best option is to do a short boat tour and see it from the river. We didn't do that. Instead, we drove across the river to the tourist square and saw it from there. It is further and the angle is not perfect, but still sufficient to get the feel. Also saved us waiting in lines for the boat and being squeezed in the crowd on it. #ancientlandmark#naturalwonders#camping#hiking#nationalpark#lakes