Chengdu: Pandas and Bureaucracy

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The first day of my arrival in China I was a bit sleep deprived. I took an overnight flight from Chiang Mai. It actually only takes a few hours to fly to Chengdu. But the cheapest flight I could find involved having a 8 hour lay over in the Kunning airport. I flew out of Chiang Mai at 7:30pm and arrived in Kunning at 10pm. I went through customs and claimed my bag and then searched for a place in the airport I could curl up until 7:00am. I settled on a Starbucks that had nice bench sofas perfect for the cheapskate overnight layover. I wasn't even the only person with this problem. Half a dozen other travelers were sprawled over the Starbucks. I estimate that I got about 5 hours of sleep.

In the morning my flight was delayed for an hour so we didn't arrive in Chengdu until about 9:30am. I had arranged with my hostel to pick me up from the airport for a fee of $15 and I was a little anxious that the delay would mean that my ride would not be there. But someone was waiting for me with a sign that I had my name on it. I tried to apologize for the flight delay and thank him for waiting for me but the only English he appeared to know was "Chengdu Lazybones Hostel." This was the beginning of my struggle with the Chinese-English language barrier. I made me realize how spoiled I have been by the prevalence of English in the touristed parts of South East Asia. Even looking back on my trips through India and Egypt where I was expecting a language barrier there were always people eager to communicate with me in English to win my patronage.

After arriving at the hostel my first order of business was to apply for a visa extension. The visa that I had purchased in Bangkok after much hassle and $150 was only for 15 days and my plans required at least 30 days. My guide book claimed that the government office which I needed to apply for the extension was located right behind the giant Mao statue near the center of the city. Luckily my hostel was only about 10 blocks from there so I could walk. When I arrived at the building I found what looked a lot like a giant post office with a central receptionist and lots of teller windows. I was grateful to see a sign in English and Chinese but was unable to deduce which office I required for my problem. The receptionist seemed to understand 'visa extension' unfortunately I didn't understand anything except her pointing to the elevators. Luckily the elevator only had one other floor and when I got out there was only one desk. The girl at the desk handed me a pamphlet that listed the required documents for an extension. Passport, application, proof of funds, and proof of residence at a hotel. Basically I had to copy my hostel receipt and key card along with my credit card and passport pages. This took a few tries but eventually they had everything they wanted and I was told to come back in a week to pick up my passport and pay another $150. After talking with other travelers some of whom got there visa in Bangkok like me I have figured out that the duration of the visa and the amount of documents required is pretty arbitrary. I met Americans who received a 60 day visa in Bangkok but I only got 15 days. And many people told me that it is very difficult to get extensions in bigger cities like Beijing and Shanghai. So over all I cannot complain because I wasn't required to change or cut my travel plans because I was denied an extension or anything like that. I just had to jump through some hoops. After I dealt with my visa problem I hunted down some dumplings from a shop across from my hostel which only cost about a $1. Then I went to bed at 6pm.

In the morning I booked a trip to see the Pandas at the Chengdu Breeding Center. Essentially the Chengdu Panda Breeding Center is like a zoo that only has pandas. They are the biggest reason I put Chengdu on my itinerary. For 1100 yuan you can hold a baby panda and have your picture taken. I really wanted to do that, but I only but I had only brought 1000 yuan with me. That is almost $200. It was a very hard decision to forgo cuddling a baby panda. But I still got to see soooo many pandas in one place. I got to watch a Mother Panda and her two cubs frolic. I loved to see the pandas.

The next day I signed up for a Szechuan cooking class taught by the restaurant attached to my hostel. It was a small class consisting of myself and two girls visiting from Taiwan. We made spicy tofu and twice cooked pork. Afterwards the Taiwan girls invited me out for hotpot and tea. They told me how Chengdu hot pot was famous for being extremely spicy. I am glad they invited me because hot pot is a group experience and it would have been weird to try and order it for one person. The restaurant we went to had tables with recessed hotplates to keep the spicy broth boiling. The girls ordered lots of different raw veggies and meat. I had no idea what I was getting. They showed me how to mix my own dip from the oil, soy sauce, and spices provided on the table. After eating the meat boiled in spicy broth and dipped in oil, and experiencing the Szechuan cooking class I had the feeling that the local cuisine consists of a million different way to eat chili peppers.

In order to leave Chengdu I had to buy a train ticket. The hostel offered to sell the tickets but the travel agent was gone on the day I inquired so they wrote down the train information for me in Chinese and sent me two doors down to the ticket office to buy the tickets myself. I think this saved me a decent amount of money because my ticket from Chengdu to Xian only cost $20.

Giant Panda Facts
(from National Geographic and Wanglang Nature Reserve)

*There are only about 1000 Giant Pandas left in the wild
*Panda cubs weigh about 5 ounces at birth
*Can give birth to two cubs at a time but in the wild only one will survive
*Are very solitary animals and only seek out other pandas during mating season
*Eat about 28 pounds of bamboo a day
*Weigh from 165 to 350 lbs as an adult
*Can climb trees but mostly don't bother
*Only live in mountainous forested regions in China
*Are very adorable

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