Blog 13: Pandas, Hot Pot, and it's official: China is off its head.

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I was thinking, as I was mulling ideas over in my head searching for inspiration, that as I had only been here in Chengdu for 3 days, I wouldn’t really have much to write home about...but looking through my little note book (every good writer has one I’m told), there’s a fair whack. So settle yourselves...

First things first, we have a couple of housekeeping issues to address.

I hope you have all caught your breath from the TLG episode. I have received a couple of complaints from my mother about the recklessness of my adventures, and so I apologise to her and anyone else who may have found the content of the previous blog distressing. You will be pleased to hear that this issue does not need to come with a parental advisory sticker. We are ALL safe. And mum - I have felt tipped my name into the back of my pants for when I’m on the boat...

The other issue I want to clear up is that of the age of Lady Marian. I believe I may have incorrectly stated she was 54 in a previous blog. This is not true. She was 52 when she arrived in China, (has had a birthday since), and is looking, behaving and IS, quite simply, fabulous.

Ok. I think that’s everything. Back to business.

Chengdu. The capital of steamy Sichuan. Home to earthquakes, panda bears and Chinas spiciest food.

The train rolled in about 3pm and myself and the very nice English couple got off at the station where I was immediately leapt upon by someone from the hostel that I had booked for a free taxi ride there, which was great.

The hostel itself was again really nice. The hostels have most of the time been really good, much better than I had expected and this was no exception. I did my usual housekeeping duties as soon as I had dropped my bag off in my room, (which I was sharing with 3 boys. I knew this even though there was no one else there when I went in thanks to 2 major clues: 1. The explosion of mess all over the floor. 2. The smell. It doesn’t matter where they are from, how old they are or what they have been doing, but put boys into a confined space and they make that space smell of BOY. Fact.)

Anyway, my housekeeping was me basically sorting my life out for the remainder of my time in China. I booked a panda tour for the next morning, I realised I could book my Yangtze river trip from here as well, which I did, and I walked ALL the way back to the train station to get my ticket from Wuhan (where I hadn’t reached yet) to Beijing so I could guarantee I would be in Beijing by the required day. I did not want to find myself several hundred miles from my exit airport with all train tickets booked up...

Once all of this was successfully completed, I minced back munching on some particularly tasty dumplings from a street vendor noting that the street hawkers product of choice in Chengdu is tattoos. They were EVERYWHERE, lining the streets, their designs spread out on the pavements and the tattoo pens hooked up onto their motorbike batteries. And what’s more, there were several men sat on plastic stools having them done. I would have serious doubts about the cleanliness of being tattooed in a Chinese street, sat on a plastic stool hooked up to a motorbike, but evidently it was the norm here....yikes.

The next morning it was up early to go see some panda bears. One has to visit the panda early as this is when they feed. And once they are done doing that, they do what all panda bears like to do best....and sleep. Which as you can imagine, does not bode well for good photo taking opportunities. I had heard that last year’s earthquake had damaged the panda research centre in Chengdu and many had been shipped out to a reserve further afield, but when I got there, it all seemed shiny, new and crack free.

It was a Chinese tour, so that morning I found myself in a minivan sat next to a Chinese girl who was breakfasting on a bag of dumplings. I hadn’t given this another thought as I was concentrating hard on willing the driver to avoid oncoming traffic and pedestrians as he hurtled through early morning traffic at breakneck speed, when there was a tap on my arm and the girl next to me showed me her phone. On the screen in English were the words “sorry for some bad smells”. I was a little taken aback at first...had she broken wind and was apologising? In 7 months I had not heard a single Chinese fart...then she motioned toward her now empty bag of dumplings. She was apologising for THEIR smell. I laughed, “May gwanchi” I said, (no problem), “how chew!”. She paused, and then laughed and said, “delicious!”. “Yes” I said. I love dumplings. You should never apologise for their smell which had only succeeded in making me hungry.

We arrived at the panda centre and were marched past several enclosures that appeared empty. I had my doubts about coming here. I have actively avoided Chinese zoos on account of knowing how upset I would be to see animals crammed into cages in conditions that we would simply not allow in the West. But I have to say, they were really nicely done, loads of space, no bars, just a little moat over a wall and then wooden climbing frames and lots of bamboo and trees. If I was a panda, I don’t think I would mind too much having to live here.

Anyway, we walked and walked and then came across an enclosure where 3 rather large bears were tucking into their breakfast of, well, bamboo. And there they were. Real life panda bears. You know, they look just like they do in the pictures. It was bizarre, seeing such an epic creature munching away just a few feet in front of me. I took pictures. I took more pictures. I took pictures as though these were the last 3 remaining bears on Earth. And they sat there chewing and lolling about looking quite happy with the world.

We were moved on again by our guide to the red panda enclosure. I felt quite sorry for these guys. They are the pandas ginger poorer cousins, and we took obligatory photos but no one was here to see them, and I think they knew it. They minced around a bit but they could tell their audience were bored. Perhaps they should learn some tricks like building a red panda pyramid, tap dancing or something..anything...thankfully we moved on again...

We came to the playground. Here were the young pandas, a year or so old, roaming around and looking for trouble. There were 2 that were the centre of attention - twins apparently, and they were all over each other. It was hilarious. They had a swing that one would sit on while the other lay underneath and pushed it with his feet. After a while they got bored of that and one ambled off somewhere. The remaining panda started to climb over the swing and up into the tree, but his little legs couldn’t quite reach and it looked as though he could get stuck. Then from nowhere his brother came running back, actually running, climbed up onto the swing, up into the tree onto his brother and commenced pulling him down. The other bear wasn’t really sure what to do and clung on for a little while, but eventually they both plopped out of the tree and down from the swing and rolled around in an intertwined panda fest...it was very amusing to watch. Off in the background, there was another panda lay spark out on his back. He looked like he’d had too much to drink, just flat out. The two brothers ambled off to see him, clearly looking to cause mischief. They clambered right over him but were ignored. Eventually they lolloped over and tried to get in through the door to their house but it was shut so they gave up and settled down to go to sleep. And that was it. The show was over. And then the hoards of Chinese tourists began to turn up...to find sleeping babies. I smugly put my camera away and waited for the rest of the tour.

We were taken to a shed to watch a film about panda breeding which involved some shaky hand held footage, some squealing and pink tiny pandas being born and then a Chinese lady making a dash into the cage to pick up the baby and race off with it in a lab coat. It was all a bit random. After that, we went to the “museum” which was all in Chinese but contained possibly the best glass cased display for comedy value I have ever seen in my life. The models of the animals and pandas looked like they had been made by some Sunday school group in 1974 and had remained there ever since. I HAD to take pictures...they would have done better to have chucked in a stuffed panda from the gift shop next door. The panda in the display was nothing short of frightening!

The other intriguing feature of the panda museum was the sign above the information desk as you entered. It offered all the free services provided that one only had to ask for. Free wheelchair, free use of walking stick, free sewing kit.

Free sewing kit?

This prompted 2 questions in my mind.

1. What on earth had happened here before that required the need for a sewing kit whilst visiting the panda museum?

2. How MANY times had this freak accident occurred that called for the need for use of a free sewing kit to be advertised in such
a prominent display?

The next day I walked for 7 hours, all around the west side of Chengdu. There was no real aim for my meanderings, I just picked up the tourist map from the hostel and decided to aim for all the blobs that meant “recommended visit”. Well, as I walked I got breakfast which was some kind of dough, stretched into a huge circle about 1m across, over which was sprinkled sugar and chunks of pineapple, which was then folded into a square, fried and chopped into smaller pieces. Delicious! I breakfasted in Peoples Square under the obligatory statue of Mao where there was piped music. I realised I recognised the tune, thought for a few moments before I could place it. Silent Night. A Christmas carol, in Communist China, in August. Hmmmm. This was followed by my second favourite Christmas tune (after Whams “Last Christmas” clearly the greatest Christmas song ever although “Fairytale of New York” is a hot contender), Silver Bells. Well, I don’t really know what to say about that...but it was piped out in a very pleasant saxophone version..it could well have been Kenny G, who knows...I don’t think China does.

Feeling rather full and rather festive, I continued until I came to one of Chengdu’s temples. I’ve seen plenty of Chinese temples now and so instead I went down the “folk Street” alongside it, which was another Chinese new build masquerading as “traditional ancient China” selling the same things I have been seeing this country over...

I didn’t linger. And I was getting thirsty. A perfect time to go visit one of Chengdu’s outdoor teahouses. I found it in the middle of Peoples Park, and went inside. Through the wall, there were a sea of tables of Chinese sitting under the trees, drinking tea and playing Mah Jong. I sat down, ordered my tea, which comes in a glass along with a big flask of hot water. From what I could gather, you got your tea “sets”. You could pay just for tea, like me, or pay for tea and Mah Jong for a set amount of time. This is what everyone else was doing. I sat and watched for a while, drank my tea, and moved on.

I found myself wandering through a silk market, which was nothing remarkable. The design of Chinese clothes no longer surprises me. I see the people wearing these bizarre creations, so I wasn’t holding out much hope of finding anything that I would either risk not being seen dead in or that would even fit me, when I happened upon three happy little purchases so I was VERY chuffed with myself.

It was beginning to get late, and I started the long walk back to the hostel. There have been things I have seen in China that have struck me as a REALLY good idea, and I had been keeping my eyes open for one of these for several months and had not seen them anywhere. I eventually went into a shop and drew a picture, whereby the man very excitedly pointed across the road to his friend. I went over, and showed my picture. Yes he had them, but only had one. I wanted 2. He gestured could I wait a few minutes? I said yes, his wife offered me a plastic stool and off he went on his motorbike. I have found this on several occasions - if a shop doesn’t have what you want, or the quantity you need, if you have the time, a man will get on a bike and return from somewhere with the goods. It’s a great system, as long as you can bear the ridicule you are subjected to in the meantime...

The wife was perfectly nice. She quickly realised I didn’t speak Chinese and so after asking how old I was and where I was from, pretty much left me alone and went back to her sewing. Her mate from next door however was not so easily put off. She took option 2 from the Chinese handbook of “how to deal with foreigners”, (option 1 being, : Just ignore them). Option 2 is: continue to speak to them in Chinese until they respond with a satisfactory answer. Well, I don’t know what she was saying. I don’t know what she was implying. She poked my calf with her finger, she did some kind of theatrical walk swinging her arms so I wasn’t sure if she was trying to impersonate Quasimodo or an elephant, and finally she kept pointing at her nose. If anyone can shed any light on this, I would be grateful. In the meantime, I sat there sipping my water looking at her with a bemused look on my face and did what I often like to do in these situations. I spoke to her in English. “I’m really sorry. I have absolutely NO idea what you’re talking about. I have even less of an idea what you are trying to tell me by walking around like a deranged lunatic and your nose is fine. Don’t have the surgery, its great as it is”. Seemingly content that she had prompted some kind of response, she gave a satisfied grunt and left me alone. Maybe these were the answers she had been looking for.

My man zoomed back with number two of my purchases. I was well happy. And off I went, back to my hostel feeling very pleased with myself indeed.

I know I know, what was it I wanted to buy for so long? Well...on every bike and motorbike here, there is a special attachment on the handle bars whereby one can attach an umbrella. Mainly used here to fend off the sun, they also come into their own in the rain. As I said to the man, “Zai Eengwo, juggu hen how!” (in England, this is very good!).

Like an omen, that night there was an enormous thunderstorm. They say it never rains in the centre of Chengdu like it did that night. Had there not been so much lightning I would have been tempted to go out and look, for my room was on the top floor of the hostel that was mainly covered but had an open air area outside my door. It was 5 in the morning and I could hear the staff frantically sweeping the rainwater as it fell. It sounded like the end of the world and the next morning, as I walked down to find some hotpot, there were branches down from trees and leaves and mess everywhere. It was quite something.

The quest for hotpot.

They say the hotpot in Chengdu is delicious. They say it is some of the spiciest food you will ever eat. They say it is a must to try. They say it makes grown men cry. I was determined to find it. I wandered into a few places and was pointed further still down the road. Finally I came to a place where I was allowed to sit down. I was at a table with a gas canister under it and a big silver bowl sunken in the middle. I had sugar, salt and sauces in pots, and a man who came over, lit the gas, and placed a basin of dark red liquid full of chillies and peppers into the sunken well. As it started to heat, the liquid started to swirl and the steam and the smell started to make my eyes sting. I was led to a room where you pick up all kinds of things on sticks, and then pop them all into the basin and let them cook. I had a bowl with some kind of oil in, a dish of chopped garlic and a bucket. The man came over, popped the salt and sugar and sauces with the garlic into my bowl and off I went. The meat and vegetables are cooked in the chilli bowl, then you take them off the sticks into your own bowl, slosh it around, add an insane amount of garlic (it is SO good here) and eat. It was delicious. The used sticks go into the bucket.

I was a little frightened at first that it would be too spicy, but I must say, either I am hardcore or the Chinese are wimps. Yes, it was spicy and yes it made my nose run, and made me cough, but it was simply delicious. I got very full very quickly on “meat”, mushrooms, green leaves and something I thought was a prawn but wasn’t. I don’t want to think about that one too much...

At the end, the man counts your sticks in the bucket and charges you accordingly. It’s up there with beer in the bag, it really it.

I went to bed that night happy that I had ticked all of my Chengdu boxes. Panda bears, check. Spicy hotpot, check. And tomorrow?
Tomorrow I was being picked up early, to be driven the 5 hours to Chongqing, the getting on point for a boat trip down the mighty Yangtze.

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Comments

[NateK]

Pandas, Im so jealous!