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Published: June 29th 2013
Arrived in Chengdu after a long overnight train ride, having provided entertainment and photo opportunities as exotic foreigners at the stations. A quick explore of the relaxed city was followed by a pleasant cafe beer, a very spicy 'cook-your-own' Sichuan hotpot dinner and later a visit to a teahouse opera variety show, including shadow puppetry, fire breathing and local speciality super-fast 'face changing' complete with lavish costumes.
The next day we headed out for a morning at the nearby Giant Panda breeding centre at Bifengxia, teeming with the cute but bamboo-obsessed bears (see photos). Driving on we arrived in Leshan, home of the giant (71m !) Buddha - the world's tallest - carved out of the cliffs overlooking a river confluence. Joined a long queue of jostling Chinese tourists (due to a national holiday) to climb down the cliff-face steps, gazing up at the huge figure from its very big feet.
We continued to Emei Shan, another of the sacred mountains and checked-in to our tranquil temple base for the night, awoken early in the morning to the sonorous sounds of monks chanting. Slightly cheating we caught a bus most of the way up, although hiked the final steep
summit section to reach the bling Jinding temple with its golden stupa and carved elephants, surrounded by stunning views from the mountain peak. After much posing for photos with everyone from monks to family groups we set off on the very long trek down, passing monkeys scurrying through the trees, and further temples and viewpoints, eventually limping into our hostel just in time for dinner.
Catching a flight from Chengdu we arrived in Yunnan province, and the (very) touristy town of Lijiang with canals, winding old streets and the scenic Jade Dragon park. We drove up into the mountains to start a trek through the fabulous scenery of Tiger Leaping gorge, carved out by the powerful Yangtze river. A sweaty hot climb up the 28 bends (sure we counted more!) eventually took us to the Halfway Guesthouse where we watched the sunset and later stars from the rooftop terrace perched above the canyon. The following day continued along the gorge-side passing waterfalls and sheer drops, reaching a guest house and a final precipitous cliff descent, climbing down rusty step ladders and across rickety suspension bridges to 'tiger-leaping rock' in the raging brown river below...
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Sichuan Opera
