Pandas in Chengdu

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I woke in Chengdu, thankfully minus my headache and pleasantly surprised with our accommadation which I hadn’t even noticed the previous evening. The décor was very modern and upmarket. Unfortunately we didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy it as very early that morning we set off to visit the Panda Breeding Centre. You have to arrive early if you wish to see pandas as after they finish their morning meal of bamboo shoots around 10am they curl up and sleep for the rest of the day. We saw about a dozen pandas and really enjoyed the experience. Their enclosures were fairly small and I felt that they could have been improved. However the centre does have a lot of success breeding pandas, though there were no babies in the nursery the day we were there. There are only about 1600 pandas thought still to be in the wild and they don’t breed well in captivity. Bears in captivity don’t know how to mate so they have to show them ‘panda porn’ to make them get the idea! And it actually does stimulate them into activity. Even in the wild pandas have a very low birth rate which hasn’t helped their survival. A lot of people were getting their photos taken beside a panda (at 400 yuan and your partner had to take the photo so it was pretty hit and miss) but you were lucky to get one minute next to them. It was all over before you could blink. Hopefully all the money raised went straight back into conservation.

Leaving the sanctuary we headed as a group to Wenshu Temple, Chengdu’s largest Buddhist temple. It was very busy and parts of it were being renovated. We spent a short time wandering around the grounds before meeting for lunch at the vegetarian restaurant within the temple grounds. Many of the temples prepare vegetarian food that tastes and looks like meat. This place did an excellent job - I was amazed at how well they did it! The food is fashioned from tofu and rice and you can barely taste the difference from the real thing. It was a great meal though we had a very difficult time ordering a couple of bottles of water to drink. Sometimes it is unbelievably hard to communicate what you want - and Nick (our guide) who spoke basic mandarin wasn’t getting anywhere. This is a regular problem experienced by everybody who travels here - sometimes you just cannot make yourself understood no matter how hard you try! It can be very frustrating and tiring!

Leaving the temple we all went different ways for the rest of the day. Jerry and I with a couple of the others in the group decided to walk to the statue of Chairman Mao which was in the centre of the city. On our map it looked fairly close but maps in China are very deceptive as they are never in scale and only mark major roads. Many of these roads don’t have English signposts either when you do find them! We did eventually find Mao - standing very tall and overlooking six lanes of traffic on one of the main thoroughfares through the city. He was surrounded by a sea of potted red and yellow flowers. The Chinese make the most amazing gardens from thousands of colourful potted plants - they push them into columns of wire or spread them out in patterns all over the parks and temples of their cities. Waving farewell to Mao we followed the busy road to Renmin Park where we planned on relaxing for the rest of the afternoon in the tea garden beside the lake in the park. All parks are well used by the public - the lakes (they all seem to have lakes of varying sizes) are full of families peddling plastic boats in the shape of swans or fish, the pathways are busy with children riding tricycles, under the trees old men and women play mahjong or cards and often somewhere people are enjoying impromptu karaoke sessions. The only areas that are ever quiet are the grassed areas as you cannot walk on the grass in Chinese parks which I think is rather sad. I guess that the grass would be worn away by the hundreds of pairs of feet that would walk on it daily. There were women in the park making amazing lollies on sticks from toffee - intricate butterflies and signs of the zodiac.

We happily spent the next couple of hours watching the locals relax (meaning sleep - they can fall asleep anywhere with absolutely no inhibitions about how silly they look sometimes!) As the day was very hot most of the men were wearing Chinese shorts - long trousers rolled up to the knees and their shirts rolled up to show their nipples! We tasted different types of tea - the waiters filled our cups from brass pots with long spouts which they poured well above the cups. The only distraction to the afternoon was the men who came around with evil looking long silver prongs asking if they could clean out our ears!

Catching a taxi back to the hotel we arranged to spend the evening with Harriet at a café recommended in our guide books. Prior to leaving the hotel Nick informed us that instead of leaving Chengdu for Guilin next day at 3.30pm he had just been given our air tickets (this part of the trip was by plane - no more long bus or train trips for Jerry and I) and we were all to fly out at 6.30am! The tour leader has no control of when they fly - other than the date - as the arrangements are left to Chinese agencies who book the tickets and then hand them to the Intrepid leader upon arrival in the departure city. Previous tours had left on the 3.30 flight but not us! There was going to be no sleeping in next day.

We couldn’t find the café we were looking for but passed one playing music from ‘Buena Vista Social Club’ so decided to spend the evening there. It proved to be a good choice as we had a great night - lots of jazz music, good company, a very tasty pizza and cheap scotch. However later in the evening there was a power blackout (another very common occurrence in China during the summer) and we had to leave due to having no air conditioning. It just got far too hot inside. Next morning we were all on the bus and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Guilin in Guangxi Province. From there we were taken by bus to Yangshuo, a small town which is one hour south of Guilin and situated on the banks of the Li River. Though disappointed that we didn’t spend longer in Chengdu once we arrived in Yangshuo we realized that we got a better deal - Chengdu was big, dirty, noisy and just another city whilst Yangshuo was an overgrown fishing village which had turned small tourist town - very pretty, with a laid back relaxed feel. It is set amidst absolutely beautiful limestone peaks and is in every tourist brochure you ever read about China. Jerry and I were leaving the tour here as we had decided not to go to Hong Kong with the rest of them but instead spend a few more days relaxing in the area.

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Photos

Hello!
A panda watching us watching him!

Chairman Mao.
This massive statue - it is much larger then it appears to be in the photo - stands overlooking a very busy main road.

Tea - a Chinese tradition.
Everybody drinks tea - even the children eat jelly made from tea and suck on tea iceblocks.

Drinking tea in the park.
Chinese cities are dotted with tea gardens - they are the cafes of the east.

It's been a long afternoon.
We both love how the Chinese people have the ability to sleep anywhere, at any time without any inhibitions at all.

Comments

[michael and shannon mohr]

love the blog!
hey guys- your blog is great. the photos are beautiful and it makes us jealous that we didn't do the sichuan province. i hope school is going well. take care, michael and shannon