China - Chengdu, Pandas and Emei Shan

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Chengdu
The next morning we had a flight at 10.40 to Chengdu and arrived at our hotel in our next smog ridden destination about lunchtime.
The food in this area is particularly spicy so we skipped lunch and wandered down to the local park where it was jam packed of people dancing, singing karaoke, acrobatics, playing musical instruments! Quite a racket!! Soaked up the atmosphere and had a boat ride on the lake before heading back to our hotel for a beer before bed! (Hotel Starway)
The next day we left Chengdu at 7.30am to go and visit the Breeding and Research centre for the Giant Panda as if you go early in the morning they are more likely to be active! We were lucky!! Got some fantastic pics and also some good bits of video of the Pandas playing in the water and with their keeper! Also able to walk past all the incubators and see the baby pandas that had been born within the last 6 weeks or so! So cute! Was fantastic to see them and felt very privileged as there are only 1500 Giant Pandas left in the wild and 200 in captivity. Walked back to the coach via an enclosure of Red Pandas and managed to get some good pictures of them also, playing and eating their bamboo!
A three hour coach drive to our lunch stop at Leshan and a walk up to the largest Buddha in the world, standing 71 metres high! It was built by a monk on the sandstone cliff face where three rivers meet, to protect the local population against frequent boating accidents when the rivers were in flood. Chris walked down to the bottom of his feet and back up the other side but I was content in the 35C and high humidity to look at the hazy view from the top!
Another hours drive to the Emei Shan mountain where we were staying at a Monastery for two nights with a hike on the mountain tomorrow! We had been told it was very basic but it was pretty bad! The showers were communal each one separated by a block of tiles, hot water was only available in the evenings, the toilets were just a trough and the beds were just rush mats laid over old blankets, four beds in a room, with a plastic bowl and a fan! The corridors were filthy. Chris says I shouldn’t moan – he is enjoying the experience and is getting up at 6.00am to have breakfast with the monks!
Anyway, we had a very nice meal cooked by the monks of rice with different vegetables and then had a walk into the main town, past another temple and waterfall, with some more sandstone buddhas cut into the rock.
Back to the room with a beer! Methinks it maybe just too hot to sleep and am worried about fleas, cockroaches and bedbugs!
After an uneventful, restless sleep, with Chris getting up at 4.30am (with the monks!) to do his washing, listening to the gong and the monks chanting at 5.00am, Chris having breakfast of spicy cabbage and porridge made with water with the monks at 6.00am, finally got up at about 6.45am, glad that the first night was over!
Breakfast of an omelette sandwich and a banana, a quick hike to the bus station with our bamboo walking sticks and a half an hours bus journey to Jinshui – our starting point for the trek on Mount Emei.
The walk started off uphill with steps leading through pine trees and past the houses in the village, the local traders trying to sell their homemade / homegrown wares along the way. There were enormous amounts of different butterflies, some as big as sparrows or small birds so I managed to take photos of quite a few different ones! Anyway, we passed Wangnian Temple, and Bailong Cave before reaching the river and walking along the narrow gorge and up to where the monkeys are usually found! There were quite a few monkeys around but they are basically quite wild and only jump onto the tourists to find food! There were quite a few amusing signs telling tourists not to ‘joke’ the monkeys!!
Back down to a restaurant for a Millie lunch and then continued to follow the river to the Niuxin Pavillion and then back to our starting point for the bus journey back to the town. The temperature was about 10 degrees hotter than on the mountain- a very humid 38c!! (that may be a bit of an exaggeration but thats what it felt like!) so about 8 of our group decided to go to the Hot Springs (the largest in China). Millie organised the transport and we all arrived at the 5* hotel with its 10 different hot pools, as well as the herbal hot tubs and the fruit tubs, flotation pool and an indoor swimming pool also! Spent the rest of the afternoon there , had a bbq for dinner, lounged around in the pools again as it got dark and watched all the lanterns come on, before heading back to the monastery for 10.00pm.

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Photos

The Monastery!
Sylv's next holiday choice!!

Comments

[Laura]

Panda's look very cute - Summer enjoyed seeing them!