Panda Panda Panda!!!
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2008
1
15
129
Trip End
Jul 07, 2009
Chengdu, Shaanxi, China
Monday, October 27, 2008
Firstly one of the men handed me what I thought was a plum, but it had no stalk and was very smooth. I sniffed it suspiciously and they all laughed at me and told me to take a bite. I did and found that I was eating a pickled egg with a brown egg white and a green yolk. It actually tasted quite nice, but would have been better with some mustard. Anyway, next he handed me a whole packet of biscuits and a banana, all the time laughing (I think at me. I think he thought I hadn't seen a banana before). I felt bad because I had no food to give him so I started to refuse, but he would not take no for an answer and handed me the piece de resistance, a chicken's foot. Complete with claws. I didn't know what to say or do because I had no desire to eat it (even though we tried duck feet in Beijing and they were ok), but did not want to offend him. Luckily he was not expecting me to eat it there and then, so I ate the sausage he had given me instead. I still have the chicken foot, maybe I'll keep it as a souvenir!
So in Chengdu we first went to the Panda Research centre. This involved taking a rickshaw from the bus station. We tried to explain to the driver where we wanted to go by pointing at it in the guide book. He then looked at us and held his hands in the air like a bear and growled. We think he was trying to do a panda impression. The rickshaw driver went through all the back streets so we saw another side to the city. There were lots of little shops with no customers and bored looking women in them. There were men drinking tea and playing Chinese chess and there were stray dogs and toddlers running around everywhere, even in all the dirt and rubbish that was lying by the side of the street.
At the panda sanctuary we saw loads of giant pandas and some red pandas. The giant pandas were incredibly lazy and slept, munched bamboo very loudly and scratched themselves a lot. The red pandas were scampering around everywhere and reminded me of foxes. We went to see the panda cubs (about 6 months old) and they were having loads of fun playing with each other and climbing trees and stairs and then falling off them again. They were very cute, and I loved their black ears, like Mickey Mouse. David liked the cubs best but for me it had to be the babies. We went to the nursery where there were about 8 tiny little pandas, about 30cm long, wriggling and snoozing in a play pen. They were so fluffy and made little squeaking noises. There was a tiny little new one even smaller in an incubator, curled up like a ball of black and white fluff. I wanted to attempt to steal one but decided against it, as there is no room in my rucksack. I bought a fluffy one instead. Unfortunately photography of the babies was banned because it hurts their eyes, so I have no photos of the babies :o(
Our second day in Chengdu we went to the village of Huanglongxi, where Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was filmed. It was a very pretty village with a gorgeous temple, right by the river. We sat by the river for lunch and wandered about before going to see Sichuan Opera in the evening. This included fire breathing, face changing and crazy acrobatics with women juggling tables on their feet (see photos).
The next day we left Chengdu for Leshan.
