The End of the Affair
Trip Start
Oct 24, 2005
1
63
150
Trip End
Ongoing
Chengdu,
China
Monday, January 15, 2007
We arrived at our hotel, which was lovely. We ended up in a giant room with two big beds, a couch, and a desk (and internet in the room!) -- all for the bargain price of 180Y (about $22.50). We settled in and went back to sleep for a bit.
Chengdu is a big city (our guidebook says its population is 4.1 million, while Konrad's mom
says it's 10 million -- probably a more current statistic)
Carnival Games
. It's set up as a "ring road" city, where there are three main roads encircling the city -- such things can make navigating difficult (and that proved to be the case here). Chengdu is in the Sichuan province, which is known throughout China for its spicy food -- before we arrived, everyone's eyes would light up when we mentioned Sichuan: "oh, the spicy food there!" Spicy food, home of the pandas, and innumerable appealing day trips -- we were looking forward to it. To top all that off, ourguidebook highlights a popular Chinese saying: "do not visit Sichuan when you are young." Apparently, this means that once you get to Sichuan, you'll love it so much, you won't want to leave. Sounded like a good place to visit... or so it seemed.
Our first day in Chengdu was good. We went to an "Indian" restaurant for lunch, which was not very authentic and overpriced, but it was food in our bellies: the first real food in nearly 48 hours, so we were content. From there we walked south and, through some amazing stroke of good luck, we managed to find the Apple store I was seeking. One of the reasons for our visit to Chengdu was to replace (yet again -- I've lost count of how many of these damn things I've gone through) my iPod. In fact, this time, they were upgrading me to a brand-new 80 gig color iPod! Such a delight. Anyhow, we found the place, swapped iPods, and set out to exploring the other hotel options in the city (we loved our place, but it was a bit expensive for us).
That night we headed to a local restaurant where we were treated to a true Sichuan experience: a spicy hot pot. The restaurants that offer the hot pots all are equipped with special tables which have holes cut in the center, and a gas burner beneath it
Chengdu Bicycle
. A big pot with two inner pots is placed inside the circle. One of the inner pots has a red liquid in it with lots of peppers floating in it. The second inner pot has a lighter, almost yellow liquid in it, and only a few peppers floating in it. As one could probably guess, the first pot is much spicier than the second. After you've chosen your pot, you select the different items you want to cook in it. We chose, with the help of the staff, all veggies and some tofu. You then boil the liquids and throw the veggies, etc. in the pot to cook. After a few minutes in the pot, you use your chopsticks to pick out the desired piece and dip it in a sesame oil/garlic/chives/sugar/salt mixture, then pop it in your mouth. It was a really fun and tasty experience, and topped off agood day in the city.
The next day we decided to hang around the city and check out some of the local attractions. We made our way to the Wenshu Temple, home of a fantastic veggie restaurant. The food was great, the structure was huge (dating back to the Tang Dynasty), and the afternoon was reasonably warm with some sun -- a pretty nice little trip, I reckon. From there we walked north to the train station and bought our next round of tickets. While waiting, we met some British and Australian teachers from the area and chatted about the joys of teaching in China
Chengdu Bicycle B&W
. I was shocked to learn how little they made: about 3,000 yuan per month (which is roughly $375)! While one of them only had a high school degree and was working during his gapyear, the rest were all recent uni grads and had relevant qualifications. I couldn't believe it! I had no idea what a good deal we had back in Vietnam.... We bought our tickets and walked back to the hotel, rested a bit, and then set out for an early dinner.
That's when things in Chengdu started to go wrong for us. We had located a restaurant in our guidebook that we were interested in (it's a good idea in most cities because of the lack of English, the varying quality of food, the difficulty of finding vegetarian food, etc.) and went out in search of it. And searched and searched. After more than an hour of walking around, we were horribly lost -- I told you, those damn ring roads are a pain. We grabbed a taxi and returned to our street, where we found a cafe advertising Western food. They didn't really have much beyond steak and more steak, but they made some special veggie-friendly spaghetti for us, so we didn't have to starve that night. Finding restaurants would prove to be an ongoing problem for us in Chengdu.
The next day, we woke early, packed up and moved to a cheaper hotel
Domokun Cousin?
. We were (as per usual) running behind schedule, but we didn't let that stop us and headed to one of the many bus stations in town. From there we got on a smaller bus headed an hour and a half outside of Chengdu to the town of Dujiangyan. We changed buses again and spent the next 45 minutes winding through the town and its outskirts. Finally, we pulled up at Qingcheng Shan, a mountain nearly a mile high which is home to a large number of Taoist temples. At the foot of the mountain is the Jianfu Temple, which is in very good condition. We weren't approached to pay any fees, so I thought perhaps we had somehow skirted the ticket office. We went in and checked out the temple, then came out and looked at the massive map of the mountain. We were trying to figure out the best course of action when I spied the ticket office -- I guess we hadn't been so lucky as to avoid it. I made my way over and was bowled over by the ticket price (again misquoted in our guidebook): 90Y (about $11-$12) each, with 30Y (nearly $4) each way, if we wanted to take the chairlift up (which we were considering, as it was already 3:00 and there was a whole lotta mountain to cover). We debated, and, considering the time it had spent to get there, decided to pay the hefty fee and make the most of it.
We entered the "park" and hiked towards the Yuecheng Lake, where we paid a small fee to take a very short boat ride to get to the other side. The chairlift was on the other side of the lake. However, the chairlift apparently wasn't running -- perhaps because it was the low
season? Another roadblock in our way. Well, we knew it was a good hike up the rest of the mountain, but we had no choice, so we set off at a very fast clip (I had moved into the peak stages of a cold, and it was tough to keep up with the long-legged Konrad)
Grand Buddha
. We made it to our destination, Shangqing Temple, in excellent time. The Shangqing Temple is spread over a great deal of land, requiring us to ascend even more steps. The temple dates back to the Jin Dynasty, and has been preserved (or perhaps restored, as they were working on it while we were there) very well. We explored it a bit, but knew we had to hurry through the sights a bit if we wanted to make it back to Chengdu that night. That said, we started our descent (which actually included a lot of uphill steps yet!), which took us down some very steep and narrow steps, through some gorgeous pine forest, and past a number of amusing English signs. Here are the two I got the biggest kick out of: "Building the green civilization it is warm to enjoy naturally" and "Give me tranquility and I'll return you fragrance." We also saw some squirrels, which were the first we'd seen since... perhaps Madison? It seems they're the same the world over: naughty little creatures, intent on mischievous acts (I swear they were throwing nuts on the steps so we'd slip and tumble down the mountainside).
Because we were under a bit of a time crunch, we didn't give the remaining temples the attention they probably deserved (also, because it was getting late, some of them were already locked up). We did, however, witness the tail-end of an interesting ceremony involving the burning of paper/books(?) and some chanting and singing. As I said, we were cruising down the mountain at a pretty quick pace, but we were still passed by some of the locals who were carrying tourists. I was quite impressed. Konrad was reminded of his Nepal days and the sherpas there who carried two times their body weight up the mountain while wearing sandals (or sometimes no shoes at all)
Grand Buddha - Konrad
. We hit the bottom and managed to flawlessly make all our busconnections, arriving back in Chengdu around 8:00. We hadn't eaten anything other than a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast and some granola bars that day, so we immediately sought food -- fortunately we had a place in mind, and we had scouted it out before, so we knew where it was. Well-fed and a bit tired, we walked back to the hotel and hit they hay.
Since I was sick and we'd had such a long day, we decided to hang around town the next day, so we slept in. Our main destination was the Zhaojue Temple, which was in the NE corner of town. It seemed there were no direct buses there, so we had to grab one and then change to another near the train station. Fortunately, the bus we needed to pick up cruised down a street very close to our hotel. Unfortunately, the town is building a metro, which means there's construction everywhere, which, in turn, means many of the buses are detoured. Such was the case with our bus. We ended up walking for over an hour until we
finally found a bus (not the number we were looking for) that would take us to the transfer point. Once at the train station, we wandered about, trying to find where we picked up this other bus. We asked a number of people, but were never able to find it, and since it was already 2:45 and we hadn't eaten yet (and the veggie restaurant at the temple supposedly closed at 3:30), we grabbed a cab to take us there. But he didn't take us there. He took us somewhere in the vague vicinity of the temple, pointed and told us to get out. We had no idea where we were (but knew it wasn't close to much of anything), nor where the temple was. While we were reflecting upon our current situation, we saw a monk walk by, so we followed him the last few blocks to the temple
Grand Buddha - View from Below
. By the time we entered, it was after 3:00, so we ran towards the veggie restaurant. It was closed. Frustration ensued. We walked around the temple a bit, but our stomachs were bidding us to move on, so we hit the street and found a little place where we grabbed some noodle soup and veggies, all for the bargain price of 8Y ($1). On a positive note, we were able to navigate our way back to our hotel fairly easily. We again dined on mediocre "Indian" food and went to bed with big (literally) plans for the next day.We woke up and headed for one of the many bus stations in town, looking for a bus to Leshan, the home of the Grand Buddha. Luck was on our side, it seemed, as we managed to secure tickets (quite expensive! 42Y each (just over $5)) to a bus leaving three minutes after our arrival at the station. An hour and a half later, we were in Leshan. We found a local bus which took us all the way to the ticket office for the big guy. As we had received sticker-shock so many times based on our book's outdated prices, we had researched the cost of this attraction, and were prepared to spend up to 70Y (about $9) each for the pleasure. Of course, even this price was incorrect -- they had bundled the Grand Buddha in with a variety of other sights and upped the price to 110Y (nearly $15). Disgruntled, we
paid (again, after the time and expense to get there, we had little choice) and entered the Oriental Buddha Park.
The Oriental Buddha Park is a fairly new attraction in Leshan. Apparently, the city wanted to cash in on the Grand Buddha's popularity, so they built this park in order to charge an additional 40Y for the ticket. The park is home to thousands (allegedly 3,000) Buddhas (none as large as the giant fellow on the other side of the mountain)
Grand Buddha From Above
. Some are very small, and others are quite large; some are carved into the mountain, and others are statues. The park's"centerpiece" is the reclining Buddha that is carved into the mountain here. It's said to be the longest reclining Buddha in the world, but we already saw the world's longest reclining Buddha last year at Wat Pho in Bangkok, so I'm not sure whose assertion is correct. Nonetheless, he stretches over 550 feet, so he's still pretty long. Not very well constructed though. It's said that the city wanted it completed quickly, so the workers rushed the job and finished in two years. You can tell by looking at it: it's not terribly impressive, by any stretch of the imagination (in fact, the smaller carvings below it are far more intricate).
From Oriental Buddha Park, we had to ascend a steep staircase and walk to Lingyun Shan (Towering Cloud Hill). After some more stairs and meandering, we finally approached the main attraction: the Grand Buddha. Standing 230 feet tall, the Grand Buddha has earned the claim to fame as the world's largest Buddha (this one actually sticks, I believe). Monks started carving his figure from the rockface in the early 8th century, and he's been standing there ever since they finished ninety years later. We first saw him from eye-level (his eyes,
that is). Then we descended a staircase until we were finally at his feet, a view from which one could really appreciate the big guy's stature. As we exited the park, there were a few other places to stop, none of them really terribly noteworthy. We took the bus back to the frigid station, waited forty-five minutes for the next bus, and we were headed back to Chengdu. Once in Chengdu, we took a bus to the nearest Carrefour (a big grocery store) to stock up for our long train ride the next day
Grand Buddha From Above II
. Apparently, even though all the lights were on, and signs were up, the store wasn't open yet, so we started looking for a recommendeddining spot nearby. An hour later, we were still searching, and concluded that it had probably been torn down to make way for more shopping space. That decided, we started looking for an alternative. But we couldn't find one. Anywhere. We walked around for another hour or so, finally grabbing a taxi at what we deemed the eleventh hour and returning to the place
we had eaten veggie spaghetti the other night. The food was good, and our moods improved, but, unfortunately, the night did not. When we got home (after 11:00), we discovered that the trip we thought we had booked to see the pandas the next morning had not actually been booked -- they wanted us to pay first. We called them, and managed to get ourselves on the tour, but they wouldn't pick us up, so we had to figure out how to get there ourselves. With that figured out, we finally made it to bed around 1:00, exhausted from the day's travels.
We woke up a little before 7:00 to a dark morning. Seriously, why don't they have time zones here? We tried to catch the bus to the tour, but again it was detoured because of the construction, so we hailed a taxi and sped over there. We made it with ample time to spare, sat outside in the cold darkness, and waited for the bus to arrive. It was late. But, on the
bright side, we met our tour companions: a couple about the same age as we are from Seattle/Portland (yes, I know they're in two different states). We got along really well and had lots to talk about since they'd been in China for two months and both had a background in plants (like Konrad does; I claimed some experience since I used to have plants in my office...)
Grand Buddha From Above III
. Our transport finally showed up, and we were off to see the pandas!As I mentioned earlier, Chengdu is the home of the pandas. I'm sure you're all aware that they are endangered, and that there is a worldwide effort to increase their numbers and remove them from that position. I'm sure you also know that pandas originate from China and that they eat lots of bamboo. Well, about 6 miles north of Chengdu lies the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. The base was opened in 1987 in an effort to save these cute cuddly creatures from beating a fast retreat to extinction. The base is now open to the public, most of whom visit in the morning, when the pandas are being fed. Of course, at this time of year,
the sun is hardly up by the time most of the tours commence, so it's a bit difficult to get good photos (we tried our damndest though!). The engineers of this giant base (at present occupying 40 hectares, with plans to expand and open a panda reintroduction habitat) have gone to great lengths to create a truly spectacular environment to make the pandas feel as comfortable as possible. The scientists here have studied the pandas, encouraging them to breed (and when they don't, they artificially inseminate them), helping them with their births, and nurturing their young.
The base houses a variety of pandas. The most famous being the giant panda: your "typical garden variety," black-and-white, bamboo-chomping bear. The giant pandas on the base range in age from babies (they were so cute, all cuddled together in a nursery), to sub-adults
(those that aren't yet fully independent), to adults.
Oriental Buddha Park - Buddha Carving
There are also a fair number of red pandas. The red pandas are way smaller than the giant pandas, and look like a cross between a raccoon and an Arlo Pie, sporting long, puffy, red and black striped tails, and wearing "masks" similar to those donned by raccoons. The grounds are also used to support other species, such as white and black swans. While there, we weren't able to actually enter the panda habitats, but we got damn close to them and were able to appreciate everything about them, from their sub-thumb (which makes them so human-like!) to their cuddly bellies. We also watched a very informative video about them (very interesting -- did you know that the mother has no maternal instincts during the first birth? She'll just be walking around and suddenly the unbelievably small (we're talking 50-150 grams) baby literally pops out. She then starts batting it around because it's making too much noise....) and explored a museum devoted to their lives and evolution. All in all, it was money well spent, and we enjoyed ourselves quite a bit. But we had a train to catch, so we couldn't linger too long, so we were off and running.
We grabbed some food for the train/bus, gulped down some noodle soup, and found ourselves back at the train station. As we sat and waited for the train to depart, we reflected on our time in Chengdu. Up to this point, we had really enjoyed China; it had surprised us in so many ways, and had been worth dealing with the cold weather. Chengdu had been hyped a lot, and we were really expecting it to be fabulous. However, there were so many frustrations we dealt with during our visit that we came to the conclusion our love affair with China had come to an end in this city. Regardless, we weren't leaving, and were about to hit the road again in search of brighter horizons. The next leg of our journey would take twenty-four hours and cover over 700 miles. And off we went.
