Chengdu

---

I decided to leave Nanjing only after a couple days and it was rather difficult to get out of the place. The hostel I was staying at offered to book my train ticket but when she called the computers were down so I needed to either wait or go to the train station itself. I decided rather than waiting in the hostel I would make the quick trip to the train station. I don't really know what I was thinking, lines in China never go quick, unless you are the person cutting everyone. When I was at the train station the first couple places I said were not available so I said Chengdu, the lady shook her head at the first train and then turn the monitor to show me the second train to see if it was ok. I had no idea I just wanted a sleeper and it was fine. What I later learned was that the letters in front of the train number actually mean something and the D in front of the train I got on was not a good one. It had no AC with a fan that made horrible noises the entire time. Sadly the fan would be shut off around 2am and then it got so hot in the train you couldn't sleep. The train ride was 38hrs, so it was not the most pleasant experience I have had. I did meet a girl on the train and she decided to give me a tour of the countryside as we went by. I remember there was a small village of old run down houses and she said almost apologetically that it was an old farming village, but not to worry they were going to tear it down and put new sky rise apartments up around the corner. I told her I liked the village, and she looked surprised and said in Chengdu there was an old town if I really liked the old style houses.

When I got to Chengdu I stayed at Sims Cozy Hostel, the best hostel in China. I went to see the pandas at the reserve outside the city. I went on a tour with the hostel, they said the earliest city bus would miss feeding time. Once I got there I realized that those pandas eat all the time. This lead me to go to the giant Buddha by myself. The following day after seeing the pandas I left the hostel at 9am and got back from the giant Buddha at 8pm. The day was exhausting, it was one bus of 30min to the station where a bus of 2.5hrs to another bus of 45min then when I got to the park they dropped me off at one entrance that wanted 160 yuan and I had to walk a half mile to the entrance of the Buddha for only 90yuan. Then finally waiting in line to walk down to see the statue. It was the most work I have put into seeing something, but since I have unlimited time it was more or less worth the effort. I had to extend my stay in Chengdu because my next stop I randomly decided was going to be the Tiger Leaping Gorge and there was no train there and I did not feel like taking a 20hr bus connecting to a 12hr bus. I decided to take a flight instead. With the extension of time in the city I walked around and saw the old city that the girl on the train was talking about. It was old looking, but clearly built within the last ten years. The original Tibet street was also fake old buildings selling fake Tibetan products. The Chinese tourist loved it though, so maybe it was worth building for the government. I had an overall amazing time in Chengdu.

---