Enter the dragon
Trip Start
Jan 24, 2004
1
20
31
Trip End
Apr 01, 2004
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Chengdu,
Sichuan,
China
Saturday, March 6, 2004
I have several hours to kill before my train leaves for Chengdu. Snow has brought her friend along. You just couldn't imagine a more ugly Chinese girl. We have our pictures taken in one of those cheerful Asian photo booths that will add graphics and convert your mug shot into the front cover of a pop magazine. They couldn't improve on Snow's friend much though. The poignant expression 'trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear' comes to mind. The girls wave me off from the station platform as the Chengdu express leaves town .
A major feature in my trip was Chengdu and the degree of brazen mischief and antics that I and several others got up to . Chengdu is not China's most impressive city. It has no special attractions, other than a Giant Panda breeding centre. But it lays at the heart of Sichuan province where there is the kind of food that is hot enough to merit arsehole replacement surgery, or simply ARS. There are bars. There are students. And access to the province's gargantuan national parks and mountains . Most flights into Lhasa, Tibet leave from Chengdu. It is a bit of a hub . And where there is a major junction of travellers, there are women.
Arriving at Chengdu railway station about 9.30am, an effeminate Chinese man named Leonard greets me. We are going to the Dragon Town Hostel . In a small hutong . They have free internet and a laundry. Clothes can be left to dry in a low ceilinged attic room at the top of the many tiered building set around a small courtyard.
Enter at your own risk
The rooms are sparse. The shower room is mixed-sex and a bit shabby as are the toilets which may date back to the Ming Dynasty. I love it already. Those late night Muslim-food eaters from Xian welcome me into their new den. It is Chinese Paul who owns the bar named Paul's Oasis down near the river. I am seeking some authentic Sichuan food and he directs me to a place specialising in the Sichuan hotpot. I find the place OK and enter. I am of course the only non Chinese person present since I am well and truly off the tourist map. I sit down and quietly take stock of my environment. In front of me the table is like a polo mint. Inside the circular aperture sits a bubbling cauldron of red oil. There is a gas cylinder at my feet. Paul gave me a piece of paper and on it are the Chinese symbols for steak and mushrooms. I hope. They arrive on a plate raw. I toss them into the vat of lava and the volcano begins to erupt . Boiling oil is spitting and crackling as I remove the morsels with tongs. As I begin to eat, the severity of the chilli-oil infusion begins to bite. My eyes mist over and I am blindly searching for cold water. Or cold beer, clumsily knocking a few things over. I've broken into a full sweat. My head must be glowing like a red hot poker. If I was a cartoon drawing, there would most certainly be steam coming from my ears. The mess on the table and around me has caused other diners to look . There is some appreciative applause. I feel like an animal in a zoo and certainly appear to be eating like one. The waitresses are very forgiving of the spillages and general disarray of my table.
Wot you lookin at ?
I know my arse will pay for this. I make a point of finishing my meal. And bowing out pride intact. At 7am one morning I go to the Giant Panda reserve with two Scandinavians, Harry and George. It's always an early start with pandas because if you don't catch them having their breakfast you wont see them again that day. They are possibly the laziest animal of all. Too lazy even to reproduce. Its lovely to see them tucking into their breakfast of bamboo shoots even though we've not yet had any breakfast ourselves. There are many baby pandas which provide bags of entertainment . The reproduction cycle has to be helped along a bit which is the general point of the establishment we find ourselves at . There are also red pandas. Hawkers outside the gates sell hundreds of gadgets and general merchandise all embossed with pictures and icons of pandas.
Returning to the Dragon Hostel, the minivan driver makes an unscheduled stop. For mechanical repairs which take forever. Why they find it necessary to do it now, wasting our time, I really don't know. But it's clear we are not pleased. A large group of us take to the People's Park and sit in the delightful tea gardens. Sampling various herbal concoctions. It's extremely pleasant at times marred only by beggars or jokers doing a turn for a few coins. We decide that collectively we must check out the underground amusement arcade.
After stumbling around in a dingy house-of-horrors type affair with coffin lids that snap open as you pass them, we board a train. A short railway under the park which runs through the most bizarre collection of stage sets. Cowboys and Indians. A cardboard cut-out of Saddam Hussein and plastic ducks. Only a madman could have conceived it.
Next ; Super Buddha
