Chengde, as the seat of the Summer Retreat of the Manchu emperors, has a lot of history going for it. There are Buddhist temples around town in each of the styles that was prevalent at the time the Emperors there ruled, to show their unity with and understanding of their neighboring cultures. The temple biggest complex outside, Puning, has one of the largest and nicest Buddha statues I’ve ever seen, and after being in Asia for a couple of years now that is a strong statement.

To give you an idea of scale, the people in this picture are no more than 10 feet or so behind the statue itself.

There’s also a really nice (but extremely overpriced) park, the former Summer Villa of the Qing dynasty emperors. If I’m being honest though, my favorite moment was as this child kept creeping closer and closer to these deer to throw rocks at them. Finally he got close enough and threw one too many, and one of the females reared up at the kid and he ran away screaming like a little girl.

This ain’t your Nara Deer Park.