Earthquake dodging

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June 20

Having finally and emotionally finished our teaching (there were many tears, mostly the kids however) we started our freedom by making the possibly risky trip to Chengdu, home of the Giant Panda. Chengdu is in the Sichuan province that was hit by an earthquake on the 12th May. However, after much research into where the earthquake had hit we decided that it was still worth a trip. The Sichuan province is the 5th largest in China and is slightly larger than Germany and about twice the size of UK. Not only did we need to make sure that we would be OK for this trip, but we needed to ensure that the Panda Reserve was open for business. Having phoned numerous numbers and trying our best to convey our question we were told that it was open and that we should make the trip.

We faced two options with this trip, firstly a potential 30 hour train ride or a slightly more expensive 2 hour flight from nearby Nanjing. So we opted for the flight, fairly obviously. Having already declared that we didn’t want any bags checking in and we would keep them as hand luggage we remembered that we had all our toothpaste and shower gels etc. still with us. We prayed for a slightly inept person to search our bags, however all sun tan lotions, toothpaste, shower gel and deodorant were confiscated. They did however let Chris on with his Swiss army knife. Who’s ever been caused any harm by a knife? But the amount of times I’ve been attacked by a madman with toothpaste doesn’t bare thinking about. Ah, airport security.

After a pleasant flight, in which we were treated to a free meal, we arrived at Chengdu airport.. After our bus trip to the city centre we were left to try to find the hostel we had booked. Unfortunately we had found that the hostel we were searching for, was somewhere down a back alley and after around 2 hours of searching for it we felt that we were looking for a needle in a haystack. So we decided to get a taxi to a hostel called Sims and get booked in there instead.

As soon as we arrived at our ‘second-choice’ hostel we fell in love with the place. There was everything that we wanted in a hostel. Cool English speaking staff, cheap tours to all the local sights, cheap international calls, free internet, pool table, table tennis, a mini gym, a pond that had a number of frogs and turtles living there, all made this the best place we’ve stayed in China.

June 21st

We went to a place called the Wenshu monastery today which was a very cool complex with a temple and an abundant garden. There were a number of ponds and parkland areas that were home to numerous turtles and frogs. We sat watching these animals, in particular the turtles and relaxed. It was a very peaceful place to spend some time. The monastery itself had a number of cool shrines and images of gargoyles.

Other than the Giant Pandas, the Sichuan province is also famous for its teahouses and we visited one inside this complex. We each paid 10 yuan (around 70p) and were given a cup of tea and were provided with free refills. Us Brits were in our element and fortunately we’ve managed to convince our American friend Chris around to our way of thinking. We sat, again lazily, just people watching in the outdoor setting of the teahouse, enjoying tea and the nice weather we were afforded.

Outside the temple complex there was a grid of market streets with vendors selling all kinds of produce including incense, lanterns and art. We have seen a lot of this style of market whilst we have been in China, but maybe because we were closer towards Tibet and India the produce for the first time in a while seemed original and different to us. For the first time in our trip it made us think that it is a shame that we were unable to visit Tibet. As I’ve already eluded to, the whole place had an atmosphere of being laid back which is something that I can only really say about here and Qingdao on the coast.

Having done a bit of shopping, under Chris’ instruction we headed for a Tex-Mex restaurant. The food there was excellent and it was a real treat to eat Western food that didn’t come served to us in cardboard or polystyrene. We really enjoyed ourselves, especially Chris who seemed to be in heaven with his American fayre. We even treated ourselves to a dessert which doesn’t normally happen because the ideas of desserts out here aren’t good. At the shops you can buy pea flavoured lollys, sweetcorn flavoured lollys or sweets and other such delicious dessert options so to have the choice of apple pie, sundaes and chocolate gateaux was too irresistible for us.

After our delicious food we went to our first Irish bar in the whole of the time in China. It was good to walk into a bar where they had a Sheffield United shirt on the wall, it was like being back at university. However, we only stayed for one drink because it was stupidly expensive and we wanted to get back to the hostel so that we could each take advantage of the cheap international phone calls on offer and phone home for the first time in 4-5 months. We each spoke for longer than we had expected but fortunately it didn’t cost too much.

June 22

We woke at around 7am for the trip to the Giant Panda Reserve. The early start was so we could get to the Panda Reserve whilst the Pandas were awake as we were told that they generally sleep in the afternoon and if we set off at this time we could see them feeding.

It was a half hour trip and it was an absolutely brilliant experience. The reserve was excellently run to make sure the habitat that the Pandas were living in, was as much like the wild as possible. To all intense and purposes it was in the middle of the forest with some walkways and fences for pedestrians but short of that it pretty much was the wild. The Chinese are doing the best they can to keep numbers as high as possible and there were interesting displays about the lengths they are going to, to impregnate the females. We learnt about the artificial insemination that they are frequently carrying out to increase numbers. The female Panda normally gives birth to two cubs however in the wild only one will survive as the mother can only give her attention to one cub leaving the other to fend for itself. At the reserve they can look after this other cub which would normally have to fend for itself for food.

The one drawback is that because of the way that they are treated here, with feeding times and such they will never be able to returned to the wild. So, gradually if wild numbers continue to fall, the only Pandas that will be left in the end will be those in captivity. They were adorably cute, so we each left with 2 in our bags so if anybody is interested in owning their own panda, please let us know. 50 quid whilst stocks last.

After this we headed to what was said to be the best Teahouse in Sichuan in Renmin Park. We each relaxed with a cup of tea, and over-looked the lake and the park, it was very relaxing.

One of the things that Sichuan is famous for worldwide is its cuisine. We had to try this whilst we were here so we ventured to the nearest hot pot restaurant to our hostel. In the middle of our table there was a hot pot where you cooked all your meats and vegetables in the ready made sauces. The staff were particularly kind to us and gave us two pots (probably the foreigner special), one that was mild and one that was riddled with chillis. It was good fun to cook, however needless to say we each had problems the next day.

Following that, we went back to our Hostel and looked through the DVD collection for a film to watch that evening and happened upon Rain Man. Cue numerous impressions by me of Dustin Hoffmans character.

Lights out at 11. Definitely lights out at 11.

June 23rd

One of the places that we had each decided that we wanted to visit was the Giant Buddha at Leshan. So we planned our trip with the local bus company who took us directly to the Giant Buddha park complex. To our surprise when we arrived there was more to the site than just the Giant Buddha, there were many carvings that were very reminiscent of parts of our trip to the Longmen Caves in Luoyang. However this park was not as affected by the ‘Cultural Revolution’ which had affected small parts of Longmen, with faces of the carvings chipped off.

The walk to the Giant Buddha was very tiring and on many occasions it had us doubting ourselves whether we had taken a wrong turning. We walking through woodland with no signs of human life anywhere but we persisted and followed the path and found our way. It was well worth the trouble of the walk.

Some Giant Buddha statistics now, the Giant Buddha sits at 71m (233feet) high and has pretty broad shoulders at 28m wide. The Buddha’s toenails were around 2m in size, he was pretty big. Our photos will help you to see how impressive it is. The locals here like to compare it to the Sphynx in Giza, Egypt as a carving masterpiece. Personally I think that whilst it is very impressive the Sphynx is 3D as it goes back, whereas this doesn’t have a back, so is probably easier to carve. However it is still a masterpiece and something that I am very pleased to have visited.

As we had finished looking at the Giant Buddha we started to make the walk back. This became almost unbearable as the heat of the afternoon really started to hit and we seemed to be walking endlessly and not getting that much closer to the park entrance. We were even walking through little communities where people lived that we thought couldn’t be part of the park (the tourist signs here were virtually non-existent). So when we arrived at one such community we were offered a rickshaw ride back to civilization which we duly accepted.

We got the bus back which was playing a very entertaining film in Chinese which seemed to just show the same scene of guys playing poker 5 times. It looked rubbish but gave me the bug to want a game of poker when I get back. When we got off the train we got a taxi back to our hostel. I apologise to anyone who gets in a car with me when I get back, because I think China has affected my threshold for bad driving. When we first came out here getting in a taxi was similar to swimming with Sharks or wrestling with Lions. However we’ve done it so many times that we’ve got used to it. This guy however was mental. On three separate occasions in a 20 min drive he nearly ran into some oncoming traffic. A graduate from the Stevie Wonder School of Driving!

We got back to the Hostel, to re-gather our nerves and continued in our new found obsession of Ping-Pong.

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Photos

Isn't she lovely ...
Check out that well-maintained bush