Best One-Day Tour Route for Dazu Rock Carvings
I can’t believe it—I’ve actually been to Dazu Rock Carvings five times! From my first visit in 2009, to my second in 2012, and then three more trips in 2020 due to work, I still find Dazu Rock Carvings utterly amazing. No wonder it’s the only UNESCO World Heritage site in Chongqing.
So, I’ve decided to write this travelogue properly, sharing everything I’ve seen, heard, and come to know over these five trips. (I’ve listened to the guided commentary five times—it’s etched in my memory forever!)
First, I think many people misunderstand the term “Dazu Rock Carvings.” It’s actually the collective name for all the rock carvings spread across Dazu County. Most visitors equate Dazu Rock Carvings with the Baodingshan carvings alone. In reality, Dazu Rock Carvings encompass 102 cliff-side statue sites throughout the county. In December 1999, the five major sites—Baodingshan, Beishan, Nanshan, Shimenshan, and Shizhuanshan—were inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List as representative of Dazu Rock Carvings, making it Chongqing’s only World Heritage site. So most people who go to Baodingshan only see one part, though admittedly, Baodingshan is the most famous and the most exquisite, with the largest scale of carvings.
The five sites each have their own emphasis. I’ve personally visited Baodingshan and Beishan so far, and I’ll elaborate on both below. I’ll add the other three in future updates once I’ve been there. Here’s a one-line summary of each site’s character:
- Baodingshan: Mainly Buddhist, largest scale, most famous.
- Beishan: Oldest, dating back to the late Tang Dynasty (the other four are from the Northern–Southern Song period), noted for Guanyin statues.
- Nanshan: Taoist carvings.
- Shizhuanshan: A rare fusion of Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism in one place.
- Shimenshan: A mix of Buddhism and Taoism, with Taoist sculptures being the highlight.
Did you know there are eight great grottoes in the world, and six of them are in China? They are Dazu Rock Carvings, Dunhuang Mogao Caves, Longmen Grottoes, Yungang Grottoes, Maijishan Grottoes (I’ve been there too), and Longyou Grottoes. The other two are the Bamiyan Caves in Afghanistan and the Elephanta Caves in India. How awesome is China? I can’t help but feel a surge of pride!
**Explore: Baodingshan Cliff Carvings (Great Buddha Bend)**
So, the first stop in Dazu has to be the Baodingshan Scenic Area. From downtown Chongqing, it’s about 100 kilometers to Baodingshan, roughly a 1.8-hour drive.
Currently, a combined ticket covers both the Baodingshan carvings and the Dazu Museum. For just 100 RMB, you get entry to the Baodingshan Buddha cliff carvings plus the museum. The Dazu Museum is well worth a visit—I’ll describe it separately.
When viewing Dazu Rock Carvings, definitely hire a guide. It’s said that appreciating the carvings is 30% seeing and 70% listening. Without a guide, you’d just rush through in ten minutes. Although you can scan QR codes for audio commentary, nothing beats a live human guide. Spend the money—it’s worth it. There are three price tiers for guides, depending on your budget.
The Baodingshan cliff carvings date back to the Southern Song Dynasty, over 800 years ago. The site centers on the Great Buddha Bend (Dafowan), with smaller areas like Xiaofowan, Guangdashan, Longtan, and Songlinpo. Construction spanned more than 70 years, led by the famous monk Zhao Zhifeng, who built this tantric Buddhist sanctuary. There are 13 carving clusters with tens of thousands of statues; the Great Buddha Bend and Xiaofowan are the largest, though Xiaofowan is not open to the public. Visitors generally concentrate on the Great Buddha Bend, a horseshoe-shaped cliff face 500 meters long, 15–30 meters high.
The statues at Baodingshan are all tilted at a 15-degree angle, so when you look up at the Buddhas, you already feel a sense of prostration. The ancients were brilliant—there’s an ingenious drainage system, stone eaves to protect against rain erosion, and they even used three-point anchoring principles to apply an “inverted pyramid” equilibrium to the carvings.
Every figure at Baodingshan carries a story and a moral. The most famous pieces are the Reclining Buddha, the Thousand-Hand Guanyin, the Wheel of Life (Six Realms of Rebirth), the Buffalo Herding Tableau, and the Yuanjue Cave. If I were to explain each in detail, it would fill an entire book, so it’s best to see and listen on site.
Ten years ago, after my first visit, the phrase that stuck with me most was: “The human face is like the character ‘bitterness’.” This comes from the Wheel of Life.
Inside the Wheel of Life, there are three poisons and eight sufferings. The three poisons: greed (depicted by a cat staring up at a rat on a branch—so relatable), delusion, and jealousy. The eight sufferings (I can’t recall all): birth, crying, aging, sickness, death, and so on. The concept that the human face resembles the Chinese character for “bitterness”: the grass radical is the hair, the horizontal line the eyes, the vertical the nose, and the mouth shape below—life is born from suffering.
The Thousand-Hand Guanyin underwent eight years of restoration and finally reopened in 2015. On my first two visits, I could only peek through barriers. This time I saw her fully. Baodingshan’s Guanyin has 1,007 hands—the most I’ve ever seen and the only authentic thousand-hand Guanyin in China.
The Buffalo Herding Tableau is very different from traditional grottoes; it’s deeply rooted in everyday life. It seems to depict a buffalo boy interacting with his buffalo, but it actually uses scenes ordinary people could understand to convey the process of Buddhist meditation and enlightenment. There are ten herders and ten buffaloes—the herders represent practitioners, the buffaloes represent their minds, and the taming process illustrates mental cultivation. It’s vivid and easy to grasp right away.
The Yuanjue Cave represents the final step toward Buddhahood. It has three remarkable features: natural lighting, drainage, and stone carving. Entering, it’s pitch dark, then gradually brightens—a specially designed opening in the ceiling directs light onto three Buddha statues, creating a golden glow effect. It’s also about the human eye adjusting from darkness. The ancients were masters at harnessing nature.
After exiting the Great Buddha Bend, you can take a battery cart to the Dazu Museum (or walk—it’s not far). Battery cart: 10 RMB round trip, 5 RMB one way.
**Visit: Dazu Rock Carvings Museum**
Opened in 2015, the museum was a delightful surprise. It didn’t exist on my earlier visits. Now anyone who purchases a Baodingshan ticket can visit the museum for free. Note: the museum does not have separate ticket sales.
The museum wins you over from the outside. It’s built in a late Tang–Southern Song faux-ancient style, with extensive use of traditional timber structures. Grand and symmetrical, it’s a perfect backdrop for period costume photos—you’ll feel like you’ve time-traveled.
Covering 18,000 square meters, it’s spacious and open. Interior exhibition space is nearly 5,000 square meters over three floors. The visit starts on the third floor and winds its way down to the first.
It’s truly beautiful—I’ll throw in a few more photos for you to enjoy.
In the square in front of the museum stands a towering stone pillar, intricately carved over ten tiers with motifs from Dazu carvings: vajras, flying celestials, the Eight Divinities, celestial kings, garuda, and myriad Buddhas.
Entering on the third floor, you’ll first catch a 3‑minute 180‑degree wrap-around laser projection, “Millennium Buddha Feet,” the world’s first 360‑degree domed film about grotto art. It traces the journey of grotto art from India to Dazu, its research and preservation, the World Heritage inscription, and the Guanyin restoration. It makes you realize Dazu Rock Carvings belong not just to China, but to the world.
The second floor features mostly graphic displays with detailed introductions to all eight great grottoes of the world.
In total, the exhibition hall covers 5,000 square meters, with galleries dedicated to Chinese Buddhist art, Dazu Rock Carvings art, stone conservation technology, and more, plus a conservation center.
A striking open atrium lets you look from the second floor down to the first. What sets the museum apart is that all the grotto artifacts on the first floor are genuine—not replicas, with no glass cases or protective barriers. That takes guts.
Director Li of the Dazu Rock Carvings Academy says: “We trust our visitors.” So they’re not afraid to display them like this.
On the first floor, a Southern Song‑era Sakyamuni Buddha statue is the museum’s crown jewel, a national first‑class relic. It was one of Zhao Zhifeng’s earliest works. Gazing at it brings a deep sense of peace and sanctity.
The main exhibition, “Art Nirvana – the Dazu Rock Carvings Exhibition,” is divided into seven units: Charm, Legacy, Harmony, Resonance, Protection, Rebirth, and Treasure. Through a wealth of artifacts, documents, photos, and videos, it presents the development of grotto art from India to Dazu, the exemplary beauty of Dazu’s sinicization, and the journey of preservation.
Many of these sculptures were previously stored in storerooms or scattered among temples. Now they are collected and displayed, with more than half making their public debut.
The Dazu carvings have also inspired intangible cultural heritage, like the Baoding Incense Fair, the only state‑level intangible heritage in Dazu, as well as stone carving and paper‑cutting inheritors who continue to create based on Dazu motifs.
P.S. If time allows, on your way back you can swing by the Beishan carvings, which are right in town and convenient. Unlike the grandeur of Baodingshan, Beishan carvings are smaller, funded by ordinary people, and a bit rougher in execution.
Seeing all these carvings, big or small, I’m always in awe of the ancients’ endurance and imagination. Without modern precision tools, they carved these works freehand—small ones might take a year or two, large ones probably decades of painstaking labor. Now, many figures are headless or handless due to severe moisture erosion; perhaps one in five of the Five Hundred Arhats has lost its head, and the colors have faded. That’s why restoration is so vital.
Baodingshan carvings: 100 RMB/person (includes Dazu Museum)
Guide: Tier 1 – 150 RMB; Tier 2 – 130 RMB; Tier 3 – 120 RMB
Battery cart: 5 RMB one way, 10 RMB round trip
Hours: 08:30–18:00
Beishan carvings: 70 RMB/person
After Baodingshan, right inside the scenic area there’s a Lotus Villa, a star‑rated farm stay that combines lotus culture with sightseeing, leisure, and dining.
Lotus Villa is also a 3A scenic spot with no admission fee—just come and eat.
Built in 1997, it’s about 3 km from Baodingshan.
I think dining here is fantastic: you get to enjoy lotus pond scenery while eating authentic homestyle dishes.
The water area at Lotus Villa covers over 1,000 mu.
Ancient-style archways lend the whole place a charming, old‑world atmosphere.
Legend has it the lotus seeds here once traveled into space on a satellite, making the plants especially lush—the “space lotus” is a minor celebrity.
Due to their cosmic journey, the seeds’ chemical chains and chromosomes mutated, resulting in stronger growth, longer flowering periods, larger petals, more layers, and brighter colors.
Surrounded by rolling green hills, the villa is perfectly set off.
In summer, eating in a pavilion over the lotus pond feels utterly pleasant.
Right now is the summer solstice, the best season for lotus viewing. The fields are ablaze with blossoms, and dining amid the sea of lotus has a special charm.
Delicate, tender lotus flowers peep out among emerald leaves, reminding me of the verse: “The endless green lotus leaves stretch to the horizon; the lotus blooms in sunlight appear a special kind of red.”
At Lotus Villa, you can not only savor the pond views but also a unique lotus‑themed feast.
The lotus banquet begins with a glass of clear, sweet lotus juice—refreshing and nice.
Dishes include lotus‑infused fish, lotus‑leaf steamed ribs and pork, lotus dragon segments, stir‑fried lotus with ribs, fragrant pork‑and‑lotus soup, scrambled eggs with lotus, honey‑glazed lotus root, crispy lotus‑root sandwiches, battered lotus blossoms, and lotus‑leaf congee.
At Lotus Villa, the must‑order is lotus root soup.
The brown sugar steamed buns are substantial and filling.
Address: Hualongjie Village, Baoding Town, Dazu District, Chongqing
Average cost: around 80 RMB/person
**Eat: Dingjiapo Wang Shuhua Potato Shop**
I read online that you might not have heard of Dazu Rock Carvings, but you can’t have missed Dingjiapo Wang Shuhua’s potato snacks—that’s how famous they are. It’s one of Dazu’s Top Ten dishes and Top Ten culinary strengths. Other local highlights include “diving fish” and spicy noodles.
“Yangyu” is potato, as Chongqing folks call it. This shop started in 1989 at a corner of Bao’en Road Pedestrian Street—bright red, small but eye‑catching. Dine in or take away.
Through the window you see basins of potato slices, potato chunks, and tofu skin, plus a tub of chili sauce black‑red with toasted chili aroma and strong lajiao (chili) flavor.
Only three ingredients: potato slices, potato chunks, and tofu skin. 5 RMB per plate, all dressed in the same seasoning, each with a different texture. If alone, you can get a 3‑yuan portion or even a mixed plate—very flexible.
I think the potato chunks (tuo tuo yangyu) are the best: sticky, tender, and soft, they soak up the seasoning most.
Potato slices are crisper; tofu skin holds the chili most.
The chili oil is fragrant, with a roasted, slightly burnt, spicy kick. No alkaline taste, and the seasoning isn’t overly salty or MSG‑heavy, so the chili oil remains the star. But for those who like bold flavors, it might seem a touch mild.
You can pack leftovers to go—definitely swing by for a takeaway on your way home from Dazu!
Address: Unit 1‑1, Building 815, Bao’en, Longgang, Dazu District, Chongqing
Price: 5 RMB/serving
So, how’s that for a perfect one‑day Dazu itinerary? You get to see, to eat, and to learn. Besides the rock carvings, there’s also Dazu Longshui Lake Scenic Area not far from town. If you want to extend your trip another day, you can stay at Longshui Lake.
