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Published: August 4th 2008
We are finally in Chengdu after a long and crazy 17 hour train ride in a hard sleeper. I think we have been spoiled by only getting soft sleepers on our last two trains. I am going to set up the mental picture for you so you have some sort of an idea what it was like. Our train was going to leave at 8:07pm from Xi'an. When we still hadn't boarded at 8:05pm I began to panic! I finally was able to establish with the guys who worked at our train station that it was late and they weren't sure when we would board. at 8:30pm the guys finally beckoned to us that it was our turn to board. We got on a train that was already full of Chinese people. When we found our sleepers we discovered that the sheets were not clean and that would have to be the place we would sleep. Plus two of us were in one cart and one was next door. Chris was a champion and let Jeff and I stay in the same car together. These sleepers are not like the ones we had done before with a door and only 4
beds to a room. There is no door on the cabin and there are SIX beds in a cabin. The train was smelly, party because we were next to the piss smelling bathrooms. Once we started on our trek and old man came in to our cabin and started yelling loud in Chinese. We had no idea what he was saying! All we know is that he tried to get into Jeff's bed and another Chinese man had to tell him no! Not sure what transpired, but he ended up kicking out the guy on the top sleeper and climbing all the way up there to sleep. Who knows what actually happened? The night only proceeded to get worse. In an attempt to sleep I put on my ipod on and tried to get some shut eye. The only problem was that the train decided to make the worst noises possible. The whole train would shake and bump like the train tracks were actually missing or something. It would bump so hard that it almost bumped Jeff out of his bunk. On top of that the breaks would squeal like metal on metal whenever we went around a curve. I
honestly thought numerous times the train was going to derail and I was going to die in this stinky train. The only saving grace of the train was that Chris made some friends with Chinese people in his cabin. They were telling us about Chengdu and what to do. Plus this one other guy who could barely speak English could really only say, "please vote for Barack."
When we finally arrived in Chengdu we decided to stay at Simms Cozy Guesthouse, which is an amazing hostel. We headed straight to the travel desk to try to figure out Tibet. They let us know how super expensive it was and we decided to try and find a fourth person to make the trip more expensive. The only trouble is with all the new laws after the riots in April; you must travel with people of your same nationality. We saw a posting from this girl Madeline who wanted to find people to go with. After looking around here all day for her, we decided to make our own posting. Finally at 10pm we found each other and decided to book the trip. We are WAY over budget, but decided that
it is worth it. When will we ever be back here again? So now, we are hanging out in Chengdu for one week while we wait for our permits to come in.
Our first full day in Chengdu, we decided to walk to the Wenshu temple, one of the four major Buddhist temples. The temple was amazing. There were actually monks walking around and it had beautiful gardens. We decided to stay there for some afternoon Chinese tea- our first tea experience. Everything was in Chinese so we decided to just order the least expensive tea. It was some sort of flower tea that tasted like you were eating flower petals. I was not a fan! It was still nice to sit in the tea gardens and play rummy- our new favorite card game. From there we just walked around and tried to get our bearings in the city.
That night we decided to set off to find this dumpling restaurant that was recommended by Sim- the hostel owner. Sichuan province is famed for good spicy food so we were excited for some good food. We decided to take the bus and count out the bus stops since
My first Chinese tea experience
At the teahouse in the Wenshu Templesall the stops are in Chinese. After going 9 stops we tried to find the restaurant. After looking lost and staring at the map, a young Chinese girl came and asked us if we needed help. We showed her on the map where we needed to go. She asked us "Do you want to take the bus or taxi?" Apparently, the counting of bus stops did not work out for us. We decided to head on, walking in the right direction. After a two hour search, we never found the place, but did stumble upon a restaurant called "The Pretty Home." Since that was in English we figured maybe a menu would be, but we were wrong... Luckily one of the girls spoke very broken English and we were able to kind of order something... We weren't really sure what we were getting ourselves into. They brought out a giant hot pot filled with soup and chilies and a dead fish. They brought it to a boil in front of us and then brought out the meat and potatoes we ordered. The food was delicious and spicy and we couldn't believe we found such a great place on our own.
Before we left there were a couple girls from Poland that wondered in and since we were now experts we helped them order, mix their sauce and show them how to cook their hotpot food.
That night we ran into our old friends from Xi'an- Roberto, the Italian, and Chris, the Brit. We all decided to rent a minibus and driver together the next day to head out on a day trip to see the pandas and to Leshan. We left at 7:30am for a full day. We arrived at the Panda Breeding Center by 8:30am and we were one of the only ones there. The place was awesome and definitely worth it. Typically, in the US, we see pandas and they are sleeping and boring. We were able to see these pandas that were about 2 years old playing and wrestling with each other and having a great time. We literally must have watched them for half an hour because they were so entertaining. They were so close to us. Probably about 10 feet away with no glass, just a big ditch between us. It was awesome. We also got to see four baby pandas that were 3
and 4 days old. They were so small and didn't have any fur yet. It was so unbelievable. Unfortunately, we didn't get to see any of the adult pandas because they were sleeping and hiding from us. The panda center also had red pandas, which I had never seen before. They look like raccoons, but were pretty fun to watch run around.
After the pandas, we headed to Leshan- about a two hour drive from Chengdu. When we arrived in Leshan, we paid to get into the ground of the Grand Buddha, the largest Buddha in the world. We walked around the grounds and saw all the temples and different sculptures they had near the Buddha and then it was time for the hike down to his feet. After taking a few pictures of the Grand Buddha's head, we began the climb to his feet 71 meters (about 223 feet) below. When we arrived at the bottom to look up, he was HUGE! I put my hand near his toe and the size difference was amazing. His toe alone is 8 meters (24 feet) long! We decided to hang out there and admire the size before beginning the long
The Pretty Home
Our wonderful hotpot we stumbled upon venture up the stairs back to the top.
That night, we decided to make another try for the dumpling restaurant since Roberto (the Italian) speaks Chinese. We took a cab this time and after only 10 minutes of searching found this little, dirty, hole in the wall place with no menus and no one who spoke English. Thank God we had Roberto with us. He ordered our food for us, although I'm not sure he knew what he was ordering. The first thing that came was a sweet dumpling that I did not love. After a few chews I had to spit it out in a napkin. This was not a good start to my first real adventure in eating! The second thing that came was pork and veggie dumplings with a sauce. They were amazing! The dumplings were delicious and the sauce was spicy and good. Next we ordered some noodles. When they came out they were plain noodles with the topping in a pile on top. After stirring them around everyone split them up and ate them. They were probably the best noodles I have had in my whole life! They were spicy and good and we
were all sweating while eating them. We managed to stuff ourselves full of dumplings and noodles along with 2 beers each. The bill came to 18RMB each (under $3). I couldn't believe how good it was. I would have never decided to eat there if it weren't for Sim and the broken Chinese that Roberto could speak. It was a great night with great new friends!
We have spent the past few days just relaxing and waking around the city. I was able to add more passport pages for FREE at the consulate. They were trying to charge me $60 in LA to do it! We were able to spend some days in many of the parks and squares just relaxing. We even managed to find Peter's Tex Mex cafe, which was too much money, but worth every penny. It wasn't all that great for Mexican food, but it wasn't bad either and we were definitely craving it. The refried beans did end up tasting like Chinese food though.
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Courtney Enriquez
non-member comment
WOW
That is the best panda picture ever. Such an amazing time... keep eating those noodles girl! Stay safe :o)