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Published: June 18th 2011
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Jinli Ancient Street
Walking towards the yummy local food area. I had one more stop in China and decided to take a short one hour flight to the western city of Chengdu. I could of also got the train but it was at least 12 hrs and cost only a little cheaper than a flight. But as my flight didn’t leave Xian until 11pm –and didnt arrive in Chengdu until 12.30pm- I didn’t get to bed until about 2am! I was very tired to say the least.
Chengdu is in the Sichuan Province (Sish-wan) and is the capital of the entire area – where major decisions and plans are made. Sichuan food is a very popular chinese food and is very famous for being spicy and hot. ( Jeff loves spicy food but it makes me go to the toilet too much !! Hee Hee. Lucky that I was carrying around a roll of toilet paper with me - as most public toilets in China dont provide any. And one major difference between toilets in China is that they are called "sqatters" meaning that you need to crouch down to use them as they have just a hole in the floor-and not a bowl that you can sit down on.)
Leshan Giant Buddha
Buddhist Monks heading to the carving of the Giant Buddha. When I arrived into Chengdu, it was about 1am in the morning and the heavy cloud of pollution that hung very the city was amazing – nothing I’d ever seen before. It definitely wasn’t any normal grey rain cloud!
Well my main reason to come to Chengdu was to see the rare and endangered Giant Panda. Even though there are some in Beijing Zoo I didn’t really want to just see them enclosed in a caged zoo. The Panda Breeding and Research Centre in Chengdu is built to resemble their natural habitat and has other endangered animals as well – including the Red Panda. The Gaint Panda's are mostly active around 10am when their feeding time is - so I was lucky to see them moving around and playing a bit. It's easy to think that Panda's are lazy and sleep alot but the main reason they aren't too active and sleep is because of their diet of bamboo. They have to save their energy and conserve the limited nutrients that they get from their food. There are many different plants, bushes and bamboo growing at The Research Centre as the Panda survives on eating bushes, bamboo and
Leshan Buddhist Temple
A local buddhist praying is vegetarian ( like my friend Ethan) . The reserch centre plans to expand in the future and prepare some of the Giant Panda's for release back to their wild, natural home.
Later in the day I headed to a place called Jinli Old Street which is a famous ancient street in Chengdu. It is now very touristy but very famous especially at the end of the street that sells a lot of local food and snacks.
I went back to the area where I was staying and ended up at the Wenshu Temple – the largest Buddhist Temple in Chengdu and another famous place for Buddhists to pray. I was surprised by how cheap the entrance fee was – only 5 Yuan (You-an) which is less than 50p ! Even though I’d been to a few temples in my travels I found this one to be more authentic and less touristy. All the others seemed to be more set up to attract tourists where as The Wenshu Temple was still in use by Buddhist Monks (similar to what priests are in The Church of England) with prayer ceremonies and everyday life being carried out by the monks.
Leshan Buddhist Temple
A buddhist making on offering - an incense burner. The temple also has an open garden as well where you can have very good vegetarian chinese food and a tea-which is very common in China.
For my last sightseeing day in China I ended up going on a day trip-which was around 2 hrs by local bus to the village of Leshan. Just outside of Leshan is where the biggest stone Buddha in the world has been carved into the side of a mountain. The Giant Buddha at Leshan took over 90 years to carve by thousands of workers. It’s on the banks of the Min River and it is possible to take a boat trip to see the Buddha but Jeff and I decided to see the carving up close ( more walking ! Lucky Jeff carried me around alot of the day otherwise my paper legs would probably buckle and collapse.). Even though the carving of the giant monk is the main attraction, there is also a working Buddhist temple there as well. The walk up to the carving is very long and the walk down to the bottom is very steep with hundreds of people climbing down as well.
Well my last night in
Leshan Giant Buddha
Can't really see its scale from a photo. China I spent relaxing at the hostel as I was very tired from running around like a headless chicken for the last 10 days. China was no-where I really had any interest of travelling to but I definately enjoyed my time there and would visit again in the future. I met many people that had been travelling for many weeks and some for 3 or more months-and only in China. I had only touched on a small area of China’s amazing history, culture and area. China has 40 World Heritage Sights (which are places of natural beauty and importance) and I was lucky enough to see 7 of these ( The Great Wall , The Forbidden City , The Summer Palace, The Ming Tombs , Emperor Qins Terracotta Army , Giant Panda Centre , Leshan Giant Buddha ) - but hope to see more in the future.
My adventure ended by flying from Chengdu back to Beijing - where I got another flight to the UK. I was hoping that 2011 would have a good summer and that it wasnt going to be too windy and wet. I dont want to be wet and cold again like I was
Leshan Giant Buddha
Jeff after we had walked to the bottom of the Giant Buddha when I accidentally fell into Kunming Lake at The Summer Palace.
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