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Published: November 7th 2014
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Chengdu Nothing is as sad as withering trees in a city. It's end of october. The plane-trees in the streets of Chengdu are losing their leaves. But there is something strange. The usual autumn colors are missing. Instead the leaves are covered with a layer of greyish dust.
Actually the whole city is wrapped in a greyish dust. The grubby skyscrapers at the end of the street are hardly visible. And every day it's the same. Still it's a nice city with its shopping malls (Pizzahut, Starbuck, Carrefour, Subway), its cinema's (we saw 'Lucy') ...
...and its restaurants. Often we didn't know what we ate or what to do. But it was always delicious: dry curry in lotus leaves, Sichuan hotpot, fried potatoes with Sichuan peppercorns and fermented black bean sauce... Once we got a bowl with hot pebbles to fry our eggs. Not so easy to get the eggs out when you never passed your chopsticks exam. We hold them so tightly, that we got cramp in our fingers.
Even a modern city like Chengdu has kept some pearls from the past. In the afternoon we walked to Wenshu temple. The monastery has gone. Now there
are hotels, restaurants and traditional tea houses. The quiet atmosphere is still there though. There are hardly western visitors. 'It's difficult to find', says the young woman who is working at a tea house. 'Today I have a special day. This morning I had two Spanish visitors. And now you.'
In the evening we visited a Chinese Opera at Shu Feng Ya Yun Teahouse on Quintai Road. I always wanted to see a Chinese Opera since I heard singers imitating a nest of young cranes. Colorful costumes, high pitched voices, face changing, fire spitting, shadow playing, all accompanied by an orchestra of traditional instruments.
One drummer seems to be the leader. He has a little drum between his knees. When he beats it with a stick, it gives a high crisp sound. It supports the dancers in their sudden jerking moves. With every move they change their masks. A red with black mask becomes yellow and green and then all at a sudden it changes again to white, blue and black. Then a shadow player comes up. With his hands he shows an owl which turns his eyes, a dog which eats a rabbit, all kinds of animals
are passing by.
Meanwhile we get tea and dumplings. And if that is still not enough we can get a massage or someone will come to clean our ears, as is advertised in flashing letters.
Panda's Most famous in Chengdu are the Giant Panda's. The
Giant Panda Breeding Research Base is actually a big zoo with only two animals: Giant Panda's and Red Panda's. All lanes are flanked by bamboo trees. Every now and then we bump into a shop with panda puppets, panda cups, panda key rings, panda T-shirts, panda pens, panda diary books, a whole raft of panda paraphernalia. A panda train brings tourists to the highlights of the park, which means that they are transported from one enclosure with panda's to the next enclosure with still more panda's.
Hundreds of visitors are gathering around an enclosure where the inhabitants get their daily portion of bamboo. The panda's hold the bamboo between their thumb and the rest of their fingers. An herbivore, but officially a carnivore.
Male panda's only think of one thing. Bamboo. That's why it is so difficult to let them mate in a zoo. The Research Base uses artificial insemination,
we learn at the 'Giant Panda Cinema'. Apparently with success, because there are many cubs. 'Giant Panda's (and also Red Panda's) are in danger because of pollution and destroying of habitat', we read at the museum. And also: 'The Research Base reintroduces its panda's in the mountains of Sichuan'. But for how long, we ask ourselves, when China continues to poison its environment with smog?
Zigong The Dinoaur Museum in Zigong is built over the so called Dashanpu Dinosaur Quarry from the Middle Jura (160 million years old). It's world famous and attracts lots of visitors. Mostly Chinese. Western tourists are rare. So rare that some visitors take pictures of us and forget the dinosaurs.
In clear captions the museum gives information about the Sino-Indian orogenesis by which the Himalaya arose. Before there was a sea, we read. The land rose and the water streamed away, leaving salt lakes. That's why you find so many salt mines in this region.
They tell about the forests which arose during the Mesozoicum with Spinulose tree ferns, Aurecaria's, pines, horsetails and Gingko's, which served as food for the dino's. All of them are growing around the museum. At the
entrance stands a 2000 years old Gingko from the Qin-Han dynasty.
Back to Kunming It's full of people in the immense Northern Train Station of Chengdu. Luckily everything is well signposted. There are food shops, restaurants, even a McDonald. From the corner of my eyes I see how the Chinese are talking about me. About how tall I am. Then they point to my big red shoes and begin to chuckle. But when I turn suddenly the grin on their faces have gone at once and they look in another direction as schoolboys caught by their schoolmaster.
We travel with some soldiers. With one of them we talk a bit via 'google translate' on his I-phone. 'I am from Holland', I type on his mobile. 'I like Dutch football', he types, 'specially Robben.'
Next year he will leave military service and then he will come to Europe. To see the European football league. To see 'Lobben'. He gives us some oranges and shares his pomelo.
We have an excellent dinner in the train. Cooks are continuously busy with preparing all kinds of recipes. Meanwhile we are traveling across a landscape with high mountains. Down is
a wild river. It would have been beautiful if there were not so many factories with puffing chimneys everywhere.
We sleep very well that night. The beds are soft and clean. After almost 19 hours we arrive in Kunming. The day after we will travel back to Thailand.
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