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Paul - First of all, I had no idea about any of the football results for the past week so Grimsby are in the final and Arsenal lost. Well that's pretty good news. Very good news in fact.
So, we left Xi'an on the 16th on a sleeper to Chengdu. Much nicer than the one we got to Xi'an which stank of piss. Suffice to say Laura was pleased. Met a nice English couple who had sold their HOUSE to go travelling round the world on their honeymoon. That's the sort of dedication that I like! Played cards with some chinese girl and generally passed the time rather nicely. Got off the train at half 5, not before we woken up at half 4 by the ticket inspector (jesus, does this guy not sleep!!?!), and surprisingly there was a sign with my name on it and a guy waving towards us. So far, so good!! Hopped in his car along with the English couple and got to the "Loft hostel", where we were due to get our panda tour.
The hostel was a lovely place, we would have liked to stay the night but we needed to make it
to Chongqing this evening so we couldn't. We may have pissed off the girl at reception by strolling in at quarter to 6, she was having a long snooze I think. She was unbelievably helpful though, booked the Panda tour for 7:25, wrote down the name of the bus we needed to get, arranged us a lift to the bus station after the tour, let us get showers for free and even let Laura use a HAIRDRYER! Apparently that was the best thing she did.
Had showers (so nice) and met up with Suzy (a girl we'd met in our hotel in Xi'an, have we mentioned her? I forget these things and can't be arsed to check back) and got on the coach to go to see the Pandas. Was pretty exciting and the coach driver was the usual Chinese maniac! Thankfully it was only 10 minutes away.
Got off the bus and already the temperature was about 28 degrees. We walked into the Panda reserve and through a jungle-like complex with lots of bamboo trees and strange noises. Got bitten a few times. Laura and Suzy talked about how there were always Giant Pandas on Newsround for
about 10 minutes. They may have also talked about Neighbours but they were boring me at this point. Bloody girls. Finally walked through another clearing and in the distance, happily munching away on some bamboo, was a giant panda!
All 3 of us oooohhhh and ahhhhed for about ten minutes. By the time our voices were a little horse we turned around and there were 3 giant pandas sat about five metres from us munching away with their feet in the air. It was very funny and so cute. Laura and Suzy decided they were so adorable that they wanted to take one home. Well they've got 40 here, they probably wouldn't miss one. Walked over to another enclosure and waited as 3 giant pandas were about to be fed.
I should explain at this point that their "enclosures" were absolutely huge! We were seperated from them by a ditch which only measured about one metre across so you could literally touch them if you wanted to - and fancied getting your hand ripped off! There were no fences other than a little wooden fence to lean on. The environment they were living in was fantastic and basically
the food was put near the edges of their enclosures so you could see them easily.
The pandas were being kept inside (we heard them barking with excitement) and when they were released they all bounded across some water (the fastest they moved all day) and started chomping on their bamboo. Very very cute. Took an obscene amount of photos and went to see the youngest of the panda's there, an 8 month old cub. It was a lot more active than it's parents! Sliding down tree trunks, doing roly poly's through it's keepers legs and bounding about the grass it entertained the adoring mass of "Panda paparazzi"!
I could go on and on about the Panda's but I'll cut it short now. Basically saw 3 teenager panda's fighting along tree branches and some guy next to me was doing commentry "WWF" style. Very funny and obviously being the mature person I am, I joined in. In the end one of the panda's knocked another down some wooden steps and fell down after it. We called in a double knock out. The other panda had quit the fight to go and scratch its nether regions. Classy. Saw a
lot more Giant Panda's and made our way back to the bus.
Said bye bye to Suzy and we might see her in Hong Kong or Australia, where she will be in Sydney for a month like us. After the pandas, the real fun started(!). Had approximately 7 hours to get to Chengdu before our ferry left and we had only just got to the bus station. Tried to buy the tickets, but it was double the amount we thought. So didn't buy them. Went to the information desk and met an English speaking Chinese man and took us with him. He managed to get them for the price we thought they should be! Bit of a fiasco but this man would go on to save our skins a few times today!!
The bus was supposed to take 4 hours, leaving us 3 hours to find the docks and Caitriona and Brian... but not when you hit two hour traffic jams! A lot of watch glancing and nervous looks were exchanged and we arrived in Chongqing at 6:30. Uh oh. Got the English speaking man to write down where we wanted to be in Chinese and tried to
get in a taxi. Apparently the taxi driver's taxi was facing the wrong way so he threw us out! No kidding, that is what happened. Crazy. Our hero by this time had noticed we were panicking and had not got in a taxi yet so he flagged one down for us, spoke in heated Chinese for a couple of minutes and gestured for us to get in. We thanked him again and the taxi driver set off like a mad man for the docks. The speed was helped by the fact that I kept pointing at my watch. It was now about 10 to 7, the boat apparently left at 8.
Sped up to the docks after some dangerous driving and a lot of weaving out of traffic. Laura and I both stuck our heads out the window and shouted for Brian, and unbelievably there he was. It's hard to describe how happy we were to have made it, I would say if Grimsby win next Sunday then probably just a little less happy than that.
To cut this long story short, got on the boat, got in our rooms (they were ok but for the price we
paid they were pretty damn amazing) and settled in for our oh so difficult 4 nights cruise down the Yangzi River! Awesome! (Is that too american?) Fantastic! Splendid! Bravo!
Laura - I've decided that I want a panda. Not a dog or cat or goldfish or rabbit or hamster. A panda. They are the most amazing animals ever! Even cuter than Chili! Oh and by the way can someone please settle this for me. Our guidebook says there are no pandas outside of China but I swear that newsround told me there is one in Jersey zoo. Tarina if you're reading then am i right?!
It was an amazing experience, but Paul has said it all really so I won't go on.
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