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Published: November 6th 2006
23-09-2006 to 27-09-2006
23 September 2006
We left our Youth Hostel and headed for the train station for a 2042 km trip (tickets were only 405 Yuan - about Au $67, so cheap). On arriving at the station we were amazed at the masses of people lining up for trains. We joined them and worked out, with the help of Chinese travelers, what to do. So, (as in Rome) threw our backpacks, suitcase and hand luggage and jumped over the tops of the seats to join the moving crowd and boarded the train leaving Beijing at 11:29am on Saturday 23rd September. Train No K117 is a 31 hour 14 minute trip to Chengdu. (Always on time). Our seat allocation was in a 6-berth hard sleeper (sounds terrible but it was fun). We shared the area with all Chinese - no westerners except us. We ate their food and got lots of hints from them.
Sunday 24th September we arrived in Chengdu and attempted to catch a taxi to the Mix Hostel which was only a short distance from the train station. After a lot of messing around, we finally got a taxi driver who would take us to the
Train Trip to Chendu
People on the trip giving travel advicehostel without overcharging. We had a look around after settling in. On Monday we decided to walk around town and that evening went to the Sichuan Opera “Fu rong guo cui” in which a lot of famous actors and actress of Sichuan opera work. We saw a clown (rolling lamp), spraying fire, stick puppets, shadow figures, acrobatics and changing faces (masks) which was totally amazing - it was so fast! Tuesday 26th went to see the Pandas which were absolutely gorgeous. It was at the giant, Panda breeding Chengdu research base and is the largest giant Panda Eco-Park in the world, covering 105 hectares. It really was great, although we were surprised they artificial inseminated for breeding. (We’ve since found out that we use the same for Koalas.)
We needed to make some quick decisions on what we do next as the National Day holidays would be upon us. Accommodation and travel would be hard over this period. Hate choices! Do we go on the Yangtze River Cruise, or travel further south, or go across to Tibet, and which mode of transport? In the end we chose Lhasa by air as we could not get onto a train except
a hard seat which nobody liked for distance travel and would not be available for several days. In the meantime, we went around to “Computer Street” which comprises several buildings several stories high of computer hardware and software including cameras MP4 MP3 etc and of course DVDs.
Thursday we are going to Tibet - Lhasa (by plane). We think we are staying in a Buddhist monastery/temple/hostel. We will find out when we arrive at the door!!! (As some would say “this is China after all”). It is located in Ramoche Street near the Ramoche Temple and called “Pilgrimages Inn”. We have booked for 6 nights, then we’re off to Xi'an for a few days and are staying at The Seven Sages Youth Hostel.
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