Chilling in Chengdu
Trip Start
Jun 09, 2005
1
24
105
Trip End
Jun 08, 2006
Chengdu,
China
Monday, September 12, 2005
We arrive after a 17 hour soft sleeper train journey from Xian. We share our private cabin with two very pleasant army officers who are studying to become army lawyers. Our time passes extremely quickly as they share with us a great DVD film about a love story in Yunnan and we chat away about the politics of China. These 27 year old officers earn around 1000 Yuan per month and they hope to retire from the army when they are 35.
As with our chinese guides, Ding and Tommy from the Exodus trip (see first six weeks in China), the army officers are also from Chengdu
01 Panda
. They all speak about their city very dearly. During our two day stay we visit the Panda breeding centre. There are only around 1000 pandas remaining in the wild and this centre has successfully bred more pandas than anywhere else.
Its breakfast time in the park and this is when the black and white pandas are most active. The pandas are really close and they appear to be completely unaffected by the curious spectactors. Its really easy to watch them sitting up and rolling onto their backs as they continue to greedily munch into fresh bamboo shoots. Only occaisionally do they stop to move around on all fours or to play together. By 10am it begins to get hot and the pandas disappear into the vegetation or up into the trees to sleep.
We also visit a tea garden in Remnin (peoples) park. Here we sit in large wicker chairs beside a lake and sip chinese tea. Although it is not the weekend the place is still packed with both the young and old. There is a constant babble of voices, snapping of cards and the odd ringing noise. The ringing noise we discover is obtained from men hitting and spinning what look like miniature metal chimney sweep brushes against a set of rather long metal tweezers
02 Panda 2
. Johns ears attract a lot of attention from these men and he is soon horrified to discover that these rather large and crude looking imstruments are used to provide a personalised ear cleaning services. The highlight of our stay in Chengdu is our time spent with our chinese friends Ding and Tommy who we were our chinese guides on the Exodus trip that we joined at the beginning of our trip in China. We have never experienced such extraordinary generosity before. To begin with, Ding uses his initiative and contacts to find out where we are staying in Chengdu. It is a really nice surprise to return to our hostel and to find a personal handwritten note from him which welcomes us to the city and sets out an agenda for the evening. Ding arrives again at our hostel and we meet his friend Jojo who drives us everywhere in her 6 month old silver Polo.
Jojo is an old school friend of Dings. She and her brother are entrepeneurs setting up a web site which provides customised wedding dresses or cheong sams chinese dresses (www.china-eshop.net). She tells us that her dresses are made in Shanghai and are much cheaper dresses than dresses back home. She sells at least one dress per day and with clients from the Netherlands, Germany, Canada and the UK. The business is expanding and her brother now lives in Germany
03 Opera
. There are lots of chinese massage centres in Chengdu. We go to one of Jojos favourite venues. She goes for a massage every day and although she is already a mother, she has a fantastic figure. We opt for the foot massage as we have already been for a massage the day before (Johns back is black and blue!). Our feet really enjoy themselves and it is so relaxing that it is difficult to continue talking during the hour.
Next we are taken to a top class restaurant where we taste some non spicy Sichuan cuisine. We eat fresh asparagus tips, crispy rice cakes in a sauce, steamed meat in spring rolls, specially prepared chicken, pork balls soup and sweet fruits. We try to pay for the meal but Ding insists of paying for everything for the whole evening.
After dinner Ding takes us to experience the Sichuan opera. As he is a tour guide, he knows the owner very well. John and I are taken to the best VIP seats in the house. Whilst sipping tea we enjoy watching the Sichuan singing, the beautifully ornate puppets, and the amazing finger shadows. Best of all is the famous changing face and fire breathing where the actors wear huge cloaks and can impressively change their face masks from many different colours and styles in a split second or breathe huge flames of fire.
The evening ends with a short drive to a more upbeat area where we chat and drink red wine late into the evening.
.
