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Published: August 4th 2006
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The Crew
From the left Anne, Marc, Chris, Chrissy and Me. So here we are, new town, new blog.
We arrived a little earlier than expected in Chengdu and joined four other backpackers who were also looking for the Sim's Cozy Guest house pick-up person. When he found us, he looked a little surprised because his small van could not carry six people plus their luggage. So the luggage travelled in the van and we were sent on in a taxi.
N.B: Whilst we are on the subject of taxis. If you find yourself travelling in China, I would strongly advice that you take taxi's not trishaws. Trishaw's may appear romantic but taxi's are much cheaper because they have meters, where as with trishaws negotiating a price can be a hit and miss process at the best of times. If you do wish to go by trishaw, always agree the price before you start your journey. The price you agree is for the trip NOT per person, so ignore the driver if he pretends that the price you agreed was per person.
We booked into Sim's and into our most luxurious room yet for 180 yuan, (it even had it's own DVD player). As always we arranged for our
Active Panda
I'll show you mine, if you show me yours. washing to be done and we rested / slept. In fact that was pretty much the format for the next week. We blame this lethergy on the brilliant hostel, that we cannot recomend highly enough. The rooms, the atmosphere, the helpful staff, the resident piglets and kittens. You name it, we loved it. Sim even handed out free ice lollies one evening. All of our hostels so far have been very good (Leo Hostel in Beijing, Tian Yuan Kui Hotel in Pingyao and Bell Tower Youth Hostel in Xian), but Sim's was the best of the bunch.
Our first true excursion out was to the Sicheun Opera (90 yuan). Which was not so much an Opera, more a selection of Chinese variety acts. Including Acrobats; Stick Puppets; (Marc liked these a lot), Jugglers; Singer's; Musicians; Fire Breathers and very impressive Face Changers. Each act was five to ten minutes long, which was ideal for the TV reduced concentration spans of us westerners.
The following morning we were up early to visit the famous panda breeding centre, munching on our complimentary breakfast of biscuits and a carton of milk. You don't have to sneak up on a giant panda,
Maybe a Racoon?
Red Panda doing an impression of Marc they do not move very quickly. In fact in the summer heat, thay hardly breath, let alone move. They could even give Marc a run for his money. The little red panda's in comparison were quite nippy. We suspect that they may have been painted racoons. We took photo's especially for you Anna T.
Whilst we were booking our panda tour, we were fortunate enough to meet Chris and his wife Chrissy, who had just returned from Tibet. They were really nice and we ended up spending the majority of the rest of the week together. We met when Chris asked us whether we would share a car to Leshan, home of the world's biggest Buddha. We agreed and headed out the next morning, the trip took about two and a half hours and we lunched when we arrived. Kung Fu tea and all. Then we headed upto the Buddha. CROWDS...CROWDS...CROWDS. We squeezed to a point where we could see the Buddha's head and then Chris and Chrissy chose to wait in the shade, whilst we queued with the rest of man kind. It was a very sociable and sweaty way to pass two hours but it did not
The Dafo Buddha
The one in the background is the big Buddha. get us to the Buddha's feet. I would advise anyone who intends to visit, to go early and start to queue straight away. Still, we had a nice long chat with a Chinese couple from Nanjing and we can say that we have seen the 27 foot ear of the biggest Buddha in the world.
We originally went to Chengdu because we had heard that people were flying to Lhasa from there but when we arrived I started to worry about whether we wanted to spend all the money and time that it was becoming apparent that it would take. We had been told about an alternative route that takes the western Tibet highway, that passes through towns with Tibetan characteristics that are on the Chineses side of the Tibet Chinese boarder. However having listened to Chris, Chrissy and Anna (another young lady we met) speak so enthusiastically about their experiences, we decided to bite the bullet and blow our budget.
We purchased two one way hard sleepers on the Chengdu to Lhasa train, that only started to run 30 days ago. The ticket cost about 700 yuan and the permit 50 but the travel agents were adding
about 500 commission on each ticket because they could. More about this later. The tickets were for the 31st July, so we had plenty of days to kill and kill them we did.
To appease our guilt about being so lethargic, we ventured out to the Wenshu Monastery which is almost next to the hostel. 5 yuan later we were in a green oasis in the middle of town. We walked around in the dappled shade, admiring the buildings, the terapin pond and the rock gardens (big rocks).
Our stay in Chengdu was so lengthy that we started to really get our shopping legs, we even jumped in a cab to the computer area of town (which was marked on the free map from the hostel). We wanted to buy another keyboard like the fantastic one that Johno and Judy had given us, because unfortunately it had become apparent that the indistructable keyboard was not. We were very pleased with ourselves when be bartered the purchase down to 80 yuan and Marc managed to describe a USB to LAN converter and buy it for only 30.
Our intrepid shopping escapades did not stop there. We also braved the local Trust Mart supermarket, infact we became regulars there. Buying sweets to post back home (N.B: The Chinese postal system is superb, they insist on packing all your parcels for a nominal fee), two shirts for Marc or looking at the butchers frogs and terapins, the scary little roast things or the lovely steamed dumplings.
Chengdu is in the Sichaun region which is known for its spicy food. We ate lots of nice things whilst we were there. We had spicy Sichaun chicken which had ginger, garlic and annis in it. We were also part of a group of twenty from the hostel who were taken for a Cantonese meal, that was more like a banquet and lastly but "bestly" we had wonderful home made pork wonton and pan fried dumplings just four doors down from the hostel at a tiny place called Mama's, that Anna told us about.
So we thoroughly enjoyed Chengdu, mainly because of the great hostel and brilliant people. Off to Tibet we go!
ESPECIALLY FOR BEN, CHLOE & JASPER: Pandas were originally carnivores (meat eaters) and their bodies have not changed since then. They now eat only bamboo and have to rest a lot whilst they digest it.
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Anna
non-member comment
Thanks for the photos!
Always good to see awildlife photo, especially one I will probably never take myself - much appreciated. Keep up the good work, we're all loving your stories!